ROSY FINCH ~ SECONDA MORTE ... review

Desert Psychlist came to Spain's Rosy Finch via the bands 2015 album "Witchboro" and to say it blew us away would be a gross understatement, eagerly we awaited a follow up but, apart from the impressive "Sunset Acoustic Sessions Vol,1" (alternate versions of songs from the band debut EP "Wolves Waiting" and the album "Witchboro") nothing was forthcoming until 2020 when the band released "Scarlet". "Scarlet" was almost wholly guitarist/vocalist Mireia Porto's baby and was a lot more visceral and a lot heavier than "Witchboro" and allowed Porto to explore some of the same dark territories she had experimented with during her short tenure with, what had been her second band, Hela. Much like "Witchboro", "Scarlet" was warmly received but even as it was being recorded so the line -up was changing with Porto recruiting Óscar Soler (formally of Pyramidal) on bass and Juanjo Ufarte (from Grajo) on drums and it is this line up that brings us "Seconda Morte" the latest instalment in the ongoing Rosy Finch story.

"Seconda Morte" is a concept piece based on Dante Alighieri's 14th century poem "The Divine Comedy" a poem that tells a story of a soul's journey through hell, purgatory and heaven, a poem that Porto had been reading prior to writing and recording the lyrics and music for this release. There are just four songs on "Seconda Morte" with each representing a chapter in Dante's journey from a crisis of faith to sudden understanding, the first "Selva Ocura" is more a tone piece than a song, an instrumental composition made up of synthesised effects, raked strings and randomly plucked arpeggios meant to mirror Dante's loss of way and confusion, it's an eerie piece but oddly beautiful at the same time. Next up is "Inferno", now you might think that a song dealing with a stroll through the horrors of hell might come straight out of the blocks spitting fury and flame, but Dante's hell is an insidious hell that can be as seductive as it can be treacherous, and so Porto reflects this by allowing the music to soar and swoop between restrained and sinister and thundering and threatening, her voice a comely whisper one minute a whirlwind of screeching fury the next, her guitar playing following a similar pattern with Soler's bass and Ufarte's drums holding it all together beneath her. "Purgatorio" is our next stop on the Dante express and here we have a song that harks back a little to the bands "Witchboro" period in that it finds the band jamming an occult rock flavoured groove with Porto opting for a much more waifish and clean vocal dynamic that gradually shifts to an impassioned roar as the intensity of the music increases. Every journey ends somewhere and where better to end a journey than in paradise, or "Paradiso" as it is called here. though don't get to thinking you will be hearing a host of angels singing, harps being gently plucked or Gabriel getting modal on his horn, this is Rosy Finch remember and that is not how they operate. What you do get is moments of lysergic serenity trading places with moments of gritty heavy rock and metal slowly transitioning to a lone ethereal vocal wafting majestically over acoustic guitar, a brilliantly put together piece of music, expertly delivered by three extremely talented musicians, that has the ability to pin you to a wall with its ferocity while at the same time sending shivers down your spine with its unconventional beauty.

Rosy Finch have taken a huge gamble in taking such an iconic and celebrated piece of literature and presenting it in the context of a rock album, but it is a gamble that has paid off. Those that have never ever heard of Dante and think The Divine Comedy is a show they've missed on Netflix will still have the undulating mix of dynamics, the crunching riffs and thundering rhythms to enjoy while those familiar with the Dante will have all of the above but also the added enjoyment of seeing how the band interpret his poem, which makes "Second Morte" a win/win situation for all involved.

Check it out .... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

WITCHFINDER ~ FORGOTTEN MANSION ..... review

Witchfinder, Clément Mostefai (vocals/bass); Stanislas Franczak (guitar); Thomas Dupuy (drums) and Kevyn Raecke (keyboards), have been knocking around the scene since 2016 and in that time have shared stages with the likes of Conan, Corrosion of Conformity and Monolord, slowly building their fanbase and garnering a reputation as a good live band. The band have been no slouches when it comes to recording either with albums "Witchfinder"(2017), "Hazy Rites" (2019) and the EP "Endless Garden" (2022) all receiving warm receptions on their release. Now you might think with all this gigging they've done and with an applauded EP already under their belts this year Witchfinder might want to see 2022 out by putting their feet up and taking a well-deserved rest but no, they give us "Forgotten Mansion" (Mrs Red Sound), an early Christmas present you will not want to re-gift,

Opening track "Approaching" begins with tinkling percussion and ominous drones than erupts into a thunderous dark refrain so dank and malevolent that if you began listening to it in a dark room would soon have you running for a light switch. Strangely this dark pounding maelstrom of reverberating riffage, swirling keys and pummelling percussion is offset by vocals of an altogether different flavour, vocals that are not exactly sweet and airy but are a whole lot more melodic and cleaner than what you might have been expecting, given the bombastic nature of the grooves that surround them. In the live environment Mostefai and Franczak share vocal duties, with Mostefai handling the lead and Franczak pitching in on backing vocals and harmonies, Franczak isn't credited as a vocalist on "Forgotten Mansion" but Desert Psychlist assumes the same is true here, either way the vocals are huge and possess an echoing quality that makes them feel like they were recorded in a cathedral rather than in a studio. "Marijuana" follows with a groove no less ominous and menacing than its predecessor only here the band seem to be channelling a little Ghost type dramatics into their sound, albeit with a touch of blackened metal extremism thrown in for good measure, while "Lucid Forest" is a keyboard drenched low slow and heavy stoner doom workout with gothic undertones. "Ghosts Happen to Fade" is up next, its lyrics might scan like something translated by a Google bot but this does not detract from their execution vocally or the enjoyment its mix of heavy stoner bluster and heady psyched out doom brings Final track "The Old Days" comes over like something Dopelord, Monolord and Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats might come up with if left locked in a studio together, heavy plodding and doomic, but flecked with a myriad of subtle shades and colours that serve to break up its relentless thrumming heaviness, the song is a fittingly epic finale to what is an equally epic album of dramatic doom.

Heavy, evil sounding guitar refrains, bone rattling bass lines, ground shaking percussion and dramatic swirling keyboard flourishes are the tools Witchfinder have used to build their "Forgotten Mansion", with the decorations a mix of melodic lead and harmonized vocals with occasional hardcore growls and screeches thrown in to sweeten the deal. It's a sturdy structure built on solid foundations that will probably still be standing strong when others have crumbled to dust.

Check it out .... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

#  "Forgotten Mansion" drops 18th November 2022 on Mrs Red Sound 

BURNING SISTER ~ MILE HIGH DOWNER ROCK ..... review

Apparently, it was Black Sabbath's Bill Ward who first publicly coined the term "downer rock" it was a term he came up with in response to being asked to describe the darker, gloomier and heavier music his and other bands were experimenting with in the late 60's and early 70's. Record labels, however, were not so keen on the term, due to "downer" being street slang for barbiturates and benzodiazepines (barbs and bennies), and so avoided its use as a marketing tool and were much happier to throw their quite considerable weight behind more consumer-friendly terms like "heavy rock", "hard rock" and "heavy metal". The use of "downer rock" as a musical description died a death and soon disappeared into the annuls of history rarely to be heard again, well not quite.

Like the proverbial bad penny, the term has turned up once again, this time gracing an album of music very much in fitting with the sounds it was first coined to describe yet originating in the present day. That album is "Mile High Downer Rock" and is brought to us by a trio of musicians, hailing from Denver, Colorado, calling themselves Burning Sister.

Those of you who remember Burning Sister from their self-titled debut EP, "Burning Sister" will garner no advantage over those coming to this Denver trio anew as listening to the band's debut album "Mile High Downer Rock" is almost like listening to a different band entirely. The personnel remain the same, Steve Miller (bass/synth/vocals); Drake Brownfield (guitars) and Alison Salutz (drums), but the sounds they make together on this new release are gnarlier, grittier and just downright filthier than anything that graced their first EP. Some of the credit for this newfound gnarliness should probably go to the legendary Tad Doyle (TAD/ Brothers of the Sonic Cloth/H.Molly) who, in the mastering process, has stripped some of the polish off of the band's original sound and replaced it with a rougher edgeiness but Desert Psychlist is guessing that Doyle was only doing what the band required of him and that any dumbing down of sheen and gloss was wholly the bands idea. Whoever decides to take the credit there is no getting away from the fact that this grainier, seedier sound is something that fits the band like a glove and gives them a whole new palette of colours and textures to play with.  

First song "Leather Mistress" begins with a somewhat cliched soundbite sampled from some obscure horror flick but this is soon forgiven when the songs Electric Wizard flavoured refrain kicks in with a maelstrom of grainy guitar fuzz and low-end distortion underscored by thundering drums, barely audible vocals and some interesting synthesiser effects. Next up is "Acid Night Vision" another full-on onslaught of fuzzed out riffage and solid tight rhythms only this time with the vocals pushed a little more to the fore and some nice squealy lead work making its presence felt. By now you are probably scrolling back to make sure that you have not misread the opening piece of this review and that this trio DO actually hail from the USA and are not one of those Italian acid-doom/scuzz rock outfits that seem to be cropping up every other day. This would be perfectly understandable as Burning Sister share many of the same musical elements that Italian bands like Witchsnake, Demonio and Wizard Master bring to bear in their compositions, such as lashings of fuzz, overloaded distortion, dialled back in the mix vocals and punishing rhythms. Where Burning Sister differ from their Italian brethren however is in their dynamics. Burning Sister are not a band who are constantly in devastation mode throughout a song, they know how to pace themselves and allow spaces in songs, like "Dead Sun Blues", "S.I.B." and "Stars Align", where the listener can catch a breath before being slammed down again and where the guitar can soar for a second or two before getting dragged down again by the bass and drums into a mire of filthy groove, rare but precious moments that show that even something dubbed "downer rock" can still have the ability to lift you up.

Fuzz is the commodity we lovers of sludge, doom and stoner rock tend to gravitate towards the most in this scene we call the "underground", with the general thinking being that if it fuzzes it probably rocks. This is not always the way things work out though, as many of us have probably found to our cost after buying an album on the strength of just hearing a few bars of fuzzy riffage only then to find we've bought a complete turkey. Thankfully this is not a problem you will encounter with Burning Sister's "Mile High Downer Rock", because what fuzzes here most definitely does rock!

Check it out .... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

VITSKAR SUDEN ~ THE FACELESS KING ... review

In May 2020 one of the finest amalgamations of heavy psych, progressive doom and stonerized rock was released, at first it flew under radar of many of those who make it their business to promote underground music to the wider world but slowly and surely people started to pick up on its appeal and it soon started making appearances in those end of year lists we all love to slaver over as well getting a review in Metal Hammer magazine. The album in question was a self-titled opus by a band called Vitskar Suden and it was an album worthy of all the praise being heaped upon it.

Vitskar Suden, Martin Garner (bass/vocals); Julian Goldberger (guitar/synths); Christopher Martin (drums) and TJ Webber (guitar), return this year with "The Faceless King" (Ripple Music), the eagerly awaited follow up to "Vitskar Suden", and if you thought their debut was something special wait till this beast hits your sweet spot!

"The Faceless King" is a grandiose conceptual album that tells the story of a malevolent king dethroned and murdered by his subjects whose remains have been acquired by a sinister cult intent on resurrecting him for their own dark purposes. We use the word "grandiose" because it is a word that pertains to something that has been conceived on a very grand or ambitious scale, and this makes it the perfect word to describe the music Vitskar Suden present to us with "The Faceless King". "The Faceless King" is "grand" in respect of the richness and depth of its music, and it is "ambitious" in regard to its cinematic and panoramic vision. As the first strains of opening track "The Way-Part 1" seep stealthily out of the speakers the listener need only close his/her eyes to be transported out of their own mundane existence and into Vitskar Suden's world of cults, deposed monarchs and windswept dunes. Like a good movie "The Faceless King" drags you in and along, you may not be able to see the characters live out their triumphs and failures on a big screen but with David Paul Seymour's artwork already seared into the mind's eye and huge sprawling atmospheric tomes like "Archdiocese Of Worms" , "Shepherds On The Roadside" and "The Broken Crown" serving as your soundtrack it's easy to conjure up your own images and, much like you would when reading a book, add your own colours and textures to this engrossing conceptual piece. 

Some of you might be thinking that this is an unusually brief review for such an eagerly awaited album, but the truth is there are just not enough words to adequately describe how good an album "The Faceless King" actually is. Majestic, magnificent, monumental, glorious are just a few superlatives that could be thrown its way but even those seem to lack something when trying to describe its magnitude, so let's stick with "grandiose" for the time being but do feel free to come up with some words of your own.

Check it out ..... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

# For those who buy the vinyl version from Bandcamp "The Fretless King" comes with a limited 24-page custom RPG module written by the band and illustrated by David Paul Seymour.

THRUMM ~ NEON DEAD ...... review

You can't beat a bit of old school metal to get heads nodding and fists pumping especially when that metal comes wrapped up with searing lead guitar breaks and the sort of vocals that could put an air raid siren to shame. It is this flavour of metal, blended with a little 70's hard rock swagger and a touch of doom(ish) dankness, that Atlanta. Georgia quintet Thrumm bring to the table with their debut EP "Neon Dead", an amalgamation of old school melody and swing with new school grit and groove that will tick the boxes of fans of both.

"Neon Dead" is a little gem of an EP packed with everything good about heavy music, David Prince (guitar); Chris Abbamonte (guitar); Glen Williams (bass); Troy Wolf (drums) and Sean Shields (vocals) have together managed, on songs like "Overdrive", "Morning After Judgement Day", "Throwing Stoned" and title track "Neon Dead", to take all the best bits from old school traditional heavy metal and substitute the bits they didn't like with elements salvaged from 70's classic rock and early proto- doom. Musically Thrumm are bang on the money, Abbamonte and Prince lay down a myriad of modern and retro flavoured riffs. licks and solos that draw from the full gamut of rock and metal while beneath them there is Williams and Wolf keeping things tight and solid with low growling bottom end and powerful punchy rhythms. The grooves these four musicians lay down are structured to accommodate vocals and it would take quite a vocalist to do them the justice they deserve, thankfully in Sean Shields they have such a vocalist. Shields voice is a jaw-dropping mix of smooth soulfulness and raw power, he doesn't just hit notes he smashes through them with the ease of an opera singer, in his lower register he brings a gritty smokiness to bear, in his upper register he soars with a husky soulfulness that is, in places, reminiscent of Trapeze/Deep Purple MK III's Glenn "The Voice of Rock" Hughes. Together these four musicians and their vocalist have created something very, very special indeed, a something worth hearing over and over again

If old school metal is your thing but you have become a little bored with all the generic wannabees and copyists well then wrap an ear around Thrumm's "Neon Dead" and its blending of traditional metal with elements of doom and classic rock, you will not regret it.

Check it out .... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

KRAMPOT ~ OUROBOROS ...... review

We, the bloggers, podcasters, Youtubers and wannabe journos, who regularly spend our free time diving into the deep recesses of the Worlds underground rock and metal scenes to bring you pearls are, with a few exceptions, an affable bunch who will regularly share our finds with each other in order to better promote the music we love. These shares can take the form of a message/email, a post on social media or even a purchase on Bandcamp (which will generate a notification on the feed of those who follow you). It was from the latter of these "shares", from fellow Doom Charts contributor and head honcho at Deathrattle Podcast Steve Woodier, that Desert Psychlist was introduced to stoner doomsters Krampot.

Krampot, Andrea Klein (guitar); Claudia Mühlberger (guitar/vocals); Julian Kirchner (bass) and Georg Schiffer (drums), hail from Vienna, Austria and jam a groove that sonically sits within the stoner doom canon but thanks to the unique singing style of the bands vocalist and the sometimes more strident gait of their grooves finds itself situated a touch left of its centre, as you will no doubt discover when listening to the band's latest release "Ouroboros"

Sparse percussion and low throbbing bass introduce opening track "Heliopolis" but are soon swallowed up in a groove that is doomic by nature, circular in execution and gritty and grainy in texture. As we pointed out previously Krampot are not your archetypical stoner doom combo and this first track is a prime example of that, the pace is a little too strident than what some might be used to in this sub-genre and the tones of the guitars lean more towards an early 70's proto-doom sound than something you might expect to hear on say a Yob or Toner Low album. Another factor that sets them apart from others in their field is Mühlberger's vocals, her voice possesses all the necessary moroseness and melancholy we have grown accustomed to hearing fronting music of this nature yet has a brightness, and clarity quite unusual in the genre. What follows this opening number is more doom but doom with a difference, what we mean by this is Krampot's doom is not of the generic variety, yes songs like "Yom Hadin", "Ta-Tenen" and "Wild Hunt" do adhere mostly to a low and heavy dynamic but those 70's flavoured proto guitar tones Mühlberger and Klein bring to the table and the fact that the rhythm section, of Kirchner and Schiffer, are not constantly trying to crush you with the combined power of their respective instruments, allows room for an element  of subtlety and finesse amongst all the heaviness and bluster. Lyrically the band are quite astute too, its true the band do stick to the tried and tested formulae of using legend and mythology to decorate their songs, but they do not throw these words together blindly. A lot of thought has gone into lines like "Sebek's beasts scourge riverbanks from Nile delta to aqueous ends" ("Heliopolis") and "mankind cloaked in flames as Tefnut feeds on land fiery heights emerging obsidian descent"("Ra's Retreat"), intelligent lines that go a long way to proving that there is still a place for poetry in heavy music. 

There will be some among you who will find Krampot's off-centred approach to doom on "Ouroboros" a little hard to take on first listen, some of you might struggle with the unusually bright vocal tones, others might find the proto flavours of the guitars not brutal enough, while some might baulk at the inclusion of a song that includes Czechoslovakian lyrics chanted in a Native American meter over tribal drumming ("Marena"), however, if you stick with it you WILL reap rewards. There is an endearing stealth like quality to the grooves inhabiting "Ouroboros", the albums music having a tendency to creep up on you and slowly seep into your psyche and worm its way under your skin, to the point where what was once an objective listener has now become a slavering fan desperate for news of the next release. 

Check it out ..... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones

THAMMUZ ~ SONS OF THE OCCULT ...... review

When reviewing Thammuz's debut album "Into The Great Unknown" Desert Psychlist described them as "a band who can take you by the hand and dance you down long dusty desert highways, who can evoke nightmares with their dank doomic dirges, take you on psychedelic journeys into the cosmos and rip your face off with their aggressive punk-like ferocity". Well two years have passed since that album was released so have Thammuz ditched that diversity and tried to make their lives easier by just settling into one groove and sticking with it or have, they continued down the same paths of diversity that made "Into The Great Unknown" one of the standout releases of 2020? Thankfully new album "Sons Of The Occult" (Argonauta Records) proves the latter to be the answer.

Thammuz's second album bursts into life with an absolute barn burner in the shape of instrumental "Electric Sheep", though to call it an instrumental is not strictly accurate as it does contain a heavily filtered robotic voice quoting the title of Phillip K. Dick's celebrated novel that inspired the movie "Blade Runner". The track begins with a delicious circular guitar motif that is then joined by the bass, drums and second guitar in a groove that recalls the heydays of Kyuss and Fu Manchu, a raucous, grainy and strident groove that would make the perfect soundtrack for an overhead shot of cars racing through deserts in some futuristic road movie. Leaving us no time to catch our breaths Thammuz then slam straight into the album's title track "Sons of the Occult" a thrumming blend of doom tinted riffage interspersed with curly little QOTSA flavoured guitar licks and motifs overlayed with a superbly pitched throaty vocal that at one point intones the immortal lines "We all have the power in our hands to kill, some of you want to but just a few will". Next up is "Guayota" a semi-acoustic instrumental that slowly builds layer upon layer and along the way incorporates a mixture of Floydian and Elder type guitar textures and colours in its sonic makeup This is then followed by "Had A Blast" a hypnotic tome decorated in a mix of falsetto and husky vocal tones, the song subtly increasing in intensity and volume but never quite exploding. "Self-taught Man" is the type of song Alice Cooper might have pitched to his record company back in his early days only to be told not to risk his career, it is a song that shares many of the musical characteristics Alice toyed with back in those early days. Its lyrical themes of horror and perversity are almost vaudevillian in content and are backed by a mixture of musical backdrops that range from Victorian music hall theatrics to Sunset Strip hard rock sleaziness, and who could resist a line like "i want to play with your remains" or the offer to "make love to you when you were dead". Next is "Dumuzid's Descent" a brief but interesting instrumental with strong lysergic overtones which then leads us to "Death Song's" a crunching riff monster with an old school hard/desert rock vibe that routinely shifts between a strident gallop and a satisfying chug. "People From the Sky" follows next and is a nicely paced desert rock workout perfect for driving along to while "Peyote", an instrumental, blends heavy psych haziness with desert rock swagger without drifting too far into either territory. Finally, we arrive at "Insomnia" a song that shifts with keen regularity between laid back and languid and raucous and gnarly boasting along the way low liquid bass motifs, crunching riffs, searing solos and thunderous solid percussion all topped off with a superb vocal that lyrically sways between weary introspection and questioning anger.

Heavy music is not a stranger to diversity, but it is rare to come across a band like Thammuz who sound so different from one song to another yet still manage to maintain a signature sound that is so wholly their own. Many may have thought that the levels of diversity found on the band's debut "Into The Great Unknown" was the result of a band trying to find their own feet and develop their own sound by experimenting with different genres before settling on a direction that suited them best, but then along comes "Sons Of The Occult" and dispels that theory by following much the same path as its predecessor. It seems very much that being all things to all men/women, and anyone falling in-between, is exactly the target this Dutch foursome are aiming at, and on the strength of this, their second album, it seems as though they are hitting their targets.

Check 'em out ..... 

© 2022 Frazer Jones