BEERWOLF ~ PLANETFALL .... review

Florida may be feeling a little battled and bruised since Hurricane Irma blustered and blew her way across its coastlines, towns and cities but the people there are a resilient bunch and hopefully it wont be too long before they are back on their feet rebuilding, repairing and slowly putting their lives back together What effect these recent events have had on Florida's local music scenes is as yet unknown but if the posters announcing an "After Hurricane Party" on Tampa juggernauts Beerwolf's Facebook page are anything to go by then things are soon gonna be back on track!
Beerwolf, Jason Kleim (vocals and bass guitar), Matthew Howland (lead guitar) and AJ Prasad (drums), have been a bit quiet on the recording front since the release of their debut album "Oracle's Prophecy" in 2015 but the Tampa, Florida  band have returned this year with new ideas, a new focus and in "Planetfall" a brand new album.

Title track "Planetfall" opens Beerwolf's new opus, a throbbing doom-laden instrumental crammed with dark swathes of heavily phased riffage and pulsating rhythms, then goes full circle to finish with "Epilogue" another instrumental this time marked by it's swirling spacey effects and slightly heavier Hawkwind vibe. In-between these two tomes of instrumental diversity, however, are found the real meat and potato's of Beerwolf's groove and sound with songs like "Eagle Shirt", "Crom's Steel" and "Bones of Titan" showing a definite leaning towards the old school aesthetics of 70's hard/classic rock sprinkled with an even pinch of gnarly stoner/desert fuzz all coated in strong clean vocals. Beerwolf do dip their toes into the instrumental pool again with "Haze Arcane" and "Serpentine Fiend", both excellent jams replete with swirling guitar solo's screaming over grizzled bass lines and solid punchy percussion but it is when the band turn to delivering actual songs they really come into their own.

"Planetfall" is a superb album that's sure to be a serious contender for many of those end of year lists so beloved by fans and critics alike and one that's gonna be spinning on a regular basis here in the Desert Psychlist bunker.
Check it out ....

© 2017 Frazer Jones

HELLRAD ~ COUNTING SINS .... review

When a band cite among their main musical influences such luminaries as Black Sabbath, Motorhead, St.Vitus and Corrosion of Conformity you get a fairly good idea of what to expect from them when they finally release a product. Philidelphian trio Hellrad deliver on all those expectations with their debut release, a raucous riff fuelled romp they describe as "ugly sludge metal", flying under the title "Counting Sins".

Hellrad make no apologies for what they do, the trio of Mike Hook (guitar), Herb Jowett (bass, vocals) and Benjamin Harris (drums), intend to give no quarter in their attempts to slay all before them with their raucous riffage, pulverising grooves and big throaty vocal tones. First track "The Night" opens innocently enough with a brief droning effect then Lepor's drums kick in and all hell breaks loose, the drummer quickly joined by Hook's guitar and Jowlett's bass, the band erupting into a face melting stoner/sludge groove fragmented with lysergic atmospherics over which Jowett also delivers grizzled vocal tones. Following track "No Getting Out" follows a similar path but with  slightly doomier undertones it's menacing moodiness heightened by Jowett dropping his vocals down into a sinister half spoken, half sang growl and is further enhanced by Hook's clever use of guitar dynamics and Harris' astonishingly powerful drum skills. "Staring At The Walls" is up next and is akin to being hit by a truck such is the force of its ferocity and intensity, both Jowett's voice and bass growling in, over and  around Hook's crunching guitar riffs and Lepor's pummelling rhythms . Final track "Counting Sins" closes the album with a pulsating stoner/sludge groove that finds Jowlett roaring about "finding the truth" and announcing "this is your fate" against a backdrop coloured by growling bass riffage and punishing percussion finished with searing shards of dark guitar colouring, Hellrad finally closing proceedings the way they started them in a wave of droning noise..

Sludge metal has a tendency towards unrelenting brutality but the four songs that make up "Counting Sins"are balanced with elements of atmospheric light and shade saving what, on paper, looked to be just another riff fest into something quite dynamic and highly enjoyable
Check it out ....

© 2017 Frazer Jones

YOUNG HUNTER ~ DAYHIKER .... review

The art of songwriting and arrangement sometimes gets a little overlooked within this scene we call the underground, too often we get side-tracked by the sheer power of the riffs on display and tend to forget about everything else that actually goes into making a song work. Fortunately there are still bands out there who although duly able to supply crunching refrains and punchy rhythms also understand the importance of well written, well structured songs to accompany them.
One such band are Young Hunter, Benjamin Blake (vocals, guitar), Sara Pinnell (vocals, keys), Erik Wells (guitar), Sam Dean (bass) and Grant Pierce (drums), a quintet from  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who's mix of melody and might can be witnessed on their latest full length outing "Dayhiker". (Fear and The Void Recordings)

"Dayhiker" is a stunningly eclectic album and one that at times may come across as a little schizophrenic but is also one that is highly enjoyable , an album that mixes genres and styles from across the board but does so without losing its focus or sense of its own identity. Elements of Americana, psych, stoner and classic rock are all touched upon as Young Hunter take you on journeys through their world via seven songs of both smile inducing and spine-tingling excellence. Vocals are handled individually and jointly by Blake and Pinnell,  Blake's tone mellow and dreamy,  Pinnell's a mix of ethereal and sweet, their harmonies plus own instrumental contributions, when combined with the superb grooves brought to the table by Wells,Dean and Pierce, giving songs like " In The Shadow of the Serpent", "Entered Apprentice" "and "Dark Age" an almost Fleetwood Mac meets early Sleepy Sun aesthetic.

In summing up Young Hunter have with "Dayhiker" made an album that shows not only a step up in levels of musicianship but also one that shows an elevated maturity in both ideas and songcraft, long may it continue.
Check 'em out ...

© 2017 Frazer Jones

CAPTIVES OF THE VOID ~ HYPNOS .... review

"Fuzzed out riffs. spaced out jams" is how Bradford. UK's Captives of the Void describe their music and to be honest those six words probably sum up their grooves better than Desert Psychlist could do with a hundred but we are gonna give it a go anyway.
Captives of the Void first came onto the radar of the underground's fans and  intraweb press via their self titled debut release "Captives of the Void" a stunning collection of fuzzed out instrumental jams that prompted Fuzz FM to proclaim it as "Some of the best instrumental psych ever conceived", high praise indeed for a debut release and praise well deserved. Now the band, a duo consisting of Jack Larkin and Max Storr, are back fresh from the studio and ready to rock our world with a whole new set of jams flying under the banner of "Hypnos".

Fans of Floydian soundscapes, Earthless type wig outs and Ozric Tentacles like cosmic travelling will all find something to hang their hats on over the course of the eight jams to be found on "Hypnos", jams replete with scorching guitar pyrotechnics, crunching riffage and punchy, pummelling percussion that come at you from a myriad of different directions to entice and delight in equal measure. Whether laying down moody doom edged psych ("It's Not Safe"), eastern tinted lysergic stoner ("The Search") or spacey Ozric tinged fusion ("Joined In Orbit, ft. Tilly Riddle) there is no denying that these guys have a firm grasp of what makes instrumental music work, not only for themselves but also for  the listener. Instrumental music can often lend itself to overindulgence and self importance causing the listeners mind to wander while the guitarist goes off on yet another endless solo this is not the case with Captives of the Void the two musicians allowing each other the space and time to develop ideas and themes within a song and then filling those songs with little twists and turns that peak the interest and keep you guessing where the music may take you to next, taking their listeners with them on heady cosmic trips they will not want to miss a second of.
Check 'em out ...

© 2017 Frazer Jones

CORRODED REALMS ~ NO HEALING FOR TORTURED MIND ... review

Russia still remains a little bit of a mystery to those living outside of its borders, we are never quite sure that things we hear about the country from our governments and news media is really the truth or just political spin, what we can be sure of though, thanks to sites like Bandcamp and Reverbnation, is that there is some damn fine music being made there.
Corroded Realms, Redneck (vocals), Kazak (guitar), Alisher  (guitar), Nil (bass) and Bobrrr (drums), hail from St. Petersburg and jam a groove heavily influenced by the southern sludge and metal refrains of Down, Pantera and Crowbar and first came to Desert Psychlist's notice with their debut album "Widow"(2015) a raucous collection of crunching riffs and rhythms fronted by big throaty vocals, the band have now followed this up with their second full length album "No Healing For Tortured Mind".

Somehow those sounds of southern flecked metal mixed with elements of doom,thrash and hardcore, associated mainly with New Orleans, Louisiana, have migrated their way north from the swamps and bayous of their homeland and found a home in the colder climes of Russian city Saint Petersburg. Well that is how it feels when listening to the ten songs that make up the track listing of Corroded Realms "No Healing For Tortured Mind". If the casual listener happened across the bands second album with no prior knowledge of its origins it would come as no surprise, if when hearing songs like "Grenade In The Mouth", Bone Tomahawk" and "Stone Fire", with their full on metallic grooves fronted by throaty bear like growling, they were not fooled in to thinking that what they were listening to was recorded in some Louisiana studio by a fresh new NOLA band with their eyes on the glittering crowns of Crowbar and Down. Vocalist Redneck shows barely a hint of his Russian accent as he roars Anselmo-like over the crunching powerchords and searing solo's of Kazak and Alisher, his powerful, strong tones superbly backed up by Nil's growling bass and Bobrrr's solid, punchy percussion, the five musicians coming together to create a whirlwind of growling groove that although slightly familiar is at the same time exciting and fresh.

Southern tinted metal can some times sound a little generic in the wrong hands but Corroded Realms, with "No Healing For Tortured Mind", avoid the old clichés by keeping their southern leanings buried beneath an onslaught of bruising metallic bluster allowing those southern tendencies to colour their grooves but not overpower them resulting in an album that swings as much as it swaggers,

© 2017 Frazer Jones

ACID MAMMOTH ~ ACID MAMMOTH....review

Doom comes at the listener from an increasing array of  musical directions these days, brutal and intense, progressive and complex. psychedelic and swirly variations have all found a niche to call their own beneath the huge shadow cast from the genres dark umbrella. With so many styles of doom to choose from it is however those slightly bluesy, slightly heavier grooves that Black Sabbath brought to the table back in the early 70's that seem to still resonate with listeners the most. Sabbath in looking for a darker, heavier sound, and as the result of an unfortunate incident whereby their guitarist lost the top of his finger, started experimenting with lighter strings and lower tunings and in doing so almost by accident created a sound that many believe birthed what we now call heavy metal and in turn the heavier, lower sound of doom. Greece's Acid Mammoth, Chris Babalis (vocals, guitars), Dimosthenis Varikos (bass), Christos... Babalis (guitars) and Marios Louvaris (drums), acknowledge Sabbath's influence on their sound and understand doom's history, using elements of all its various guises to create a sound that blends its past with its present, jamming grooves informed by that which has gone before but which are still very much of today, grooves that can now be heard and appreciated on the bands self-titled debut "Acid Mammoth".

Although Acid Mammoth cite Black Sabbath as their main influence "Acid Mammoth" (the album) is not a recording to go to if expecting or wanting to hear rearranged Iommi riffs and Ozzy type nasal vocal tones, far from it, songs like opener "White Hag", "They Live" and the appropriately titled "Mists of Doom" may have their roots entrenched in the dank proto-doom grooves of the Birmingham four but are in no way bound to them, in fact they are probably closer in sound to the later doom of Candlemass than they are that of Ozzy & Co.  Clean mellow vocal melodies are the order of the day throughout the six songs presented here, melodies sang over a swathe of fuzz drenched and distorted  guitar riffage, grizzled bass and pounding percussion with the occasional scorching guitar solo punching through the mire to throw in a little light here and there. It is however when the band stretch out on longer songs like "Eternal Sleep", with it's undulating vocal melody floating over a backdrop of deliciously atmospheric and restrained doom , and the epic "Black Rites", with it's slightly gothic/occult vibe, shifting time signatures and dark psychedelic undercurrent,  that Acid Mammoth really come into their own and show what a force they can be when given a larger canvas to paint their deliciously dark grooves on.
Check 'em out ..

© 2017 Frazer Jones

SUMOKEM ~ THE GUARDIAN OF YOSEMITE ... review

Little Rock, Arkansas prog metal sludgsters Sumokem have not had the easiest of rides on their journey to where they are today. their original lead guitarist Josh Ingram sadly passed away in  May 2015 and they parted ways with their bassist Alan Wells a month later but undeterred founder Jacob Sawrie (vocals//rhythm guitar) and Drew Skarda (percussion) decided to carry on and with the recruitment of Tyler Weaver (lead guitar) and Dustin Weddle (bass) a new chapter in the bands story was written, a chapter marked by the release of their first full length album "The Guardian of Yosemite"(released 6th October 2017)

First track "Attack of the Mammoth" musically echoes its title giving a feeling that something large, feral and powerful is coming at you and there is nothing you can do about it except stand strong and try to somehow absorb the impact, Huge swathes of gnarly riffage roll over the listener pushed by growling bass and pulverising but complex percussion all coated in a mixture of growled but clear and pristine clean vocal tones around which swirling guitar solos soar and scream. Heavy, intense with prog-like elements bubbling beneath its surface the song sets a high standard for the rest of the album. "Warning" follows, it's deliciously addictive guitar motifs, swirling over a backdrop of melodic prog-ish/post-rock groove, are overlaid with strong clean vocals. As the song progresses the band move this groove briefly into harder, doomier territory with Sawrie's vocals shifting into feral mode over slow raucous riffage before taking things back to its melodic beginnings for the close. "War Pipe/Rite of the Calumet" tells a tale of Native American mythology against a backdrop swaggering heavy rock underpinned by Weddle's grizzled bass playing and Skarda's powerful,intricate percussion over which Weaver threads swirling lead and Sawrie roars, croons and bellows while chopping out monstrous powerchords. "Ogama" and "Tisayac" follow respectively, the former a mid paced slow burner that starts gentle and considerate and slowly shifts through an array of musical tempo's and vocal dynamics until finally ending in a swathe of metallic bluster, the latter a schizophrenic mixture of chugging riffage and ambient folk tinted prog that sees Weaver providing scorching lead work while Sawrie switches, as the groove dictates, from sweet clean and folky to maniacal and menacing vocally. Reverberating arpeggios played over tribal rhythms herald in "Mescalito/Meeting of the Half Moon" before the hammer goes down and the band shift gear into a sludge drenched refrain with Sawrie roaring his lyrics while Weaver rips scorching solos over the top, the band then taking a detour into the melodic prog arena for the second half of the song. Closer "Nantucket" begins low, slow and heavy with clean vocal tones and searing bluesy guitar solos ringing overhead, the groove switches back and forth between varying degrees of crushing doom/sludge and prog flavoured metal with Sawrie adjusting his vocals accordingly until finally coming to a slow pounding close.
# note those buying the digital version of the album get a near perfect rendition of Thin Lizzy's "Emerald" as a bonus!

Imagine, if you can, a cross between the prog-ish metal of Opeth and the equally prog-ish sludge of Mastodon sprinkled with a touch of stoner swagger and a pinch of heavy metal thunder and you might just arrive at the sound of Sumokem's "The Guardian of Yosemite".
Check it out ....

© 2017 Frazer Jones