Bong - Stoner Rock

(Ritual Productions, 2014)

Newcastle-based stoner rock collective Bong have unleashed their latest alb… oh, wait – let me try that again.

With their audaciously titled fourth album Stoner Rock, drone druids Bong have opened a dialogue on the usefulness and accuracy of broad genre definitions, and taken an opportunity to own and redefine the term “stoner rock” in their own image. As any writer in this field (or punter for that matter) will know, the term “stoner rock” has come to be used as shorthand for any band that appears to espouse the virtues of weed, often regardless of the kind of music they make. Considering that this covers a pretty wide spectrum of heavy metal, whether derivative of Kyuss and Sleep, classic rock, or Southern boogie, one has to ask, how can a band really be labelled “stoner rock” if they don't at least make you feel stoned?

Just as the true sense of “doom” (i.e. impending dread) is largely absent from most “doom metal” these days, “stoner rock” as it is popularly known now has as many negative connotations as good, thanks to countless terrible bands whose names are terrible puns. While I would hesitate to label Bong a stoner rock band, their name certainly has some strong genre connotations which is probably why they’ve often been mistakenly lumped in the genre. However, ironically, Bong are also one of the few current bands that can actually make you feel stoned with their music, and with Stoner Rock they’ve come to take ownership of the term with an almighty, two-pronged, THC-induced drone assault on the senses. 

Stoner Rock is repetitive to the extreme across its sprawling 74 minutes, coaxing you to zone out in the ever growing waves of distortion. Bong take literally one root note and play it out to eternity, without ever veering off their singular, slovenly path. The two tracks here, “Out Of The Aeons” and “Polaris” sound like alternative cuts from Earth’s pioneering drone metal masterpiece Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version, albeit cuts with even fewer mood shifts or diversions, and, taken as a whole piece, it’s certainly as epic in its scope as the holy grail, Sleep’s Dopesmoker. But don’t come to Stoner Rock expecting Pike-ian riffs or solos – the album is a relentless onslaught of molten guitars, each distorted strum overlapping and consuming the last, while bass rumbles gently and an eastern melody chimes out in the distance to really nail down the hypnotic vibe. If the pace of “Out of the Aeons” is designed to slowly lull you into a fugue state, then “Polaris” finishes you off, putting you into a coma, with drums crawling to the point that you kind of forget that the next snare hit is coming. Eventually time just seems to stand still, leaving you utterly mesmerised.

So, will Stoner Rock come to be seen as the pinnacle of the genre? Probably not, unfortunately. But I would argue that Stoner Rock has done more than any so-called stoner album released in the past few years to approximate the sensation of being under the influence, and thus has come the closest to redefining the term. Ultimately people will either have the patience to kick back and enjoy the long slow ride that Stoner Rock takes them on, or they won’t. But one thing’s for certain – Bong are here to weed out all the fake stoners with drones that will test your mettle.

[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 31/01/2014]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/b/bong-stoner-rock-cd-lp-dd-2014/

Bast - Spectres

(Black Bow Records/Burning World Records, 2014)

It’s been a long time coming for Kingston-based black metal/doom band Bast, but this year finally marks the arrival of their long overdue debut album ‘Spectres‘. Originally formed as a two-piece back in 2008, Bast have been a sporadic but always welcome presence in the London music scene for years, racking up some impressive support slots with the likes of Ufomammut, A Storm of Light and Ramesses, before finally arriving at their current formation in 2011 with the arrival of a bass player. During this time they recorded a demo titled ‘Branches In Earth, Roots In The Sky‘, but how widely that circulated is not really very clear so for many people Bast may be a relatively new name, particularly outside of the UK. Back in 2011 after witnessing the band for the first time at the Seven Churches all-dayer in their native Kingston, I wrote “Bast are seriously fucking heavy,” and guess what? That hasn’t changed. Rather, with Chris Fielding of Foel/Skyhammer Studios legend at the desk and all manner of vintage valve amps at their disposal, Bast have gained a considerable amount of clout and on the strength of these recordings, the first produced at Skyhammer Studios, Bast became the first signees to Jon Davis’ fledgling Black Bow Records, with Burning World Records quickly offering to handle things on the continent.

 

From the first frenetic moments of barnstorming opener ‘In The Beginning‘ to the almost comically stadium-rock ending of breathtaking closer ‘Outside The Circles Of Time‘ Bast are a true revelation on record, just as they are in a live setting. ‘Spectres‘ could be described as a kind of concept album in as much as lyrical themes recur throughout the four songs (the fifth is an instrumental) while feedback physically links the songs to make the album an immersive experience to be best enjoyed as a whole. Musically Bast lean more towards Doom than Black Metal, favouring to break up lengthy, slovenly riffs with emotionally charged hammering which is a dynamic that works beautifully well throughout. Likewise, the band use a loud/quiet dynamic on tracks like ‘Denizen‘ and ‘Outside The Circles Of Time‘ which helps emphasise their exploratory and progressive song writing style.

 

Needless to say the guitar tones throughout ‘Spectres‘ are a warm, hefty presence and Jon Lee’s drums are thunderous. Guitarist Craig Bryant manipulates feedback to connect his snake-like riffs and provide occasional accents and tension (see the tail end of ‘Denizen‘) while bassist Gavin Thomas provides excellent low-end support, occasionally driving sections along. Bryant’s screams would be best described as gut wrenchingly evil, although not at the sake of being unintelligible, and he generally adopts a slightly less hoarse vocal delivery for most of the songs to allow the album’s narrative to be understood – an allegorical journey along paths “that feet seldom tread” by “flickering candle light” to eventually end up in a land “where the shore is caressed by the sea.” The marriage of the music and lyrical imagery is well balanced, one never allowing the other to become too overblown or pompous to reach the point of pastiche, but instead telling an almost classical hero’s tale. The pacing of the many sections in each of the songs, and the sequencing of the songs themselves, all help to drive the narrative along in a natural manner, penultimate instrumental track ‘Psychonauts’ providing a brief moment of respite in the storm before the band deliver the final blow.

 

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that ‘Spectres‘ is one of the best doom albums by a UK band – and certainly one of the best debuts – of the past few years. While Bast don’t yet have such an unarguably unique sound as bands like Conan, as a piece of work ‘Spectres‘ is impressive in its scope and crafted with as much care and attention-to-detail as Bryant’s wonderful cover art. It’s hard for me to gauge Bast‘s current standing in the UK, let alone internationally, considering this is their first official release, but with UK and European dates planned for 2014 I firmly believe this is Bast‘s year to command and conquer and ‘Spectres‘ is the perfect platform to work from.

[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 27/01/2014]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/b/bast-spectres-cd-lp-cs-dd-2014/

[Later published on Roadburn Festival's website as their 'Album of the Day', 07/02/2014]
http://www.roadburn.com/2014/02/album-day-bast-spectres/

Lux Interna - There is Light in the Body, There is Blood in the Sun

(Pesanta Records, 2013)

I’m a cynical bastard sometimes; if I’m being completely honest with myself, I probably spent more time in 2013 listening to old favourites and discovering new favourites by older artists than I did listening to new albums actually released in 2013.

 

It’s easy to fall into this dangerous cycle, but the thing that always stirs me out of this perpetual safe daydream is happening upon something that sounds familiar but which is actually, to my surprise, a new album. When a friend introduced me to Lux Interna I knew I’d found gold, and upon hearing ‘There Is Light In The Body, There Is Blood In The Sun’, I knew I had myself a veritable treasure chest.

 

When you first listen to ‘There Is Light In The Body…’ you might be tempted to simply compare Lux Interna to the likes of 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand, both of whom are/were fronted by the enigmatic David Eugene Edwards, and there’s no doubt that this comparison is warranted. Lux Interna frontman Joshua Gentzke definitely has an intense vocal delivery which he shares with Edwards, and both bands blend traditional folk with more subversive, or contemporary elements. But where Edwards peppers his pastoral lyrics with religious allusions, Gentzke comes across more like a shaman, writing pagan hymns designed for worshipping at the altar of Mother Nature; where Edwards gives his music an earth shattering gravity thanks to some use of biblical language, Gentzke tends to summon a power from dark pastoral imagery. In ‘Wounded Stag’ Gentzke manages to weave the two worlds together, singing about olive branches “encrusted with souls,” singing with Lazarus, and asking some unnamed force to “take my torn flesh as your dress,” and the overall effect is compelling.

 

Musically Lux Interna employ a particularly rich palette of sounds, and the production is densely layered with guitars, banjos, drums and percussion to the point that repeated listens reveal new melodic and rhythmic elements. The aforementioned ‘Wounded Stag’ starts at a brisk pace and swells as vocal harmonies and electric guitars weave in to the mix before the song collapses under its own weight into a lengthy half-time outro – one of the album’s many highlights. Elsewhere the smoky gothic drone of ‘Nida’ invokes pastoral-era Earth, as does the distorted, tantric closing track ‘Tabor’. In the slow-burning penultimate track ‘Blackbird’, Kathryn Gentzke takes over on lead vocal duties, sounding like a forlorn Bilinda Butcher fronting a chamber quartet, suggesting a slowcore/shoegaze influence previously hinted at in the lead guitar parts on some of the earlier tracks. But some of the strongest moments on ‘There Is Light In The Body…’ occur when the band attempt something more uptempo and rollicking, such as ‘Tongues’ and ‘Seed’.

 

I won’t say that Lux Interna are entirely original – they certainly wear their influences on their sleeves – but they are far more than the sum of their parts. There have been other pioneers and trailblazers in this field of pagan, apocalyptic folk, but nonetheless Gentzke is an omniscient, commanding presence on ‘There Is Light In The Body…’ and Lux Interna’s blend of new and old ideas is uniquely theirs. This is an album that deserves repeated listens to fully work its way into the nervous system, for the layers of melody to weave their way into your subconscious and for the imagery to really strike you. Ironically, in a year in which I’ve resolved to listen to more current music, my favourite album of 2014 so far was released last year.

[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 15/01/2014]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/l/lux-interna-there-is-light-in-the-body-there-is-blood-in-the-sun-cd-lp-dd-2013/

Bicycles With No Riders - Hold You Up to The Light

(Blindsight Records, 2013)

Umair Chaudhry, formerly of Xmas Lights, has been very busy of late; this marks his third release in as many months and while his music continues to draw from the same morose well that inspires his other bands, Abandon and Monday Morning Sun, Bicycles With No Riders represents a marked shift away from his usual multi-layered approach in favour of a largely acoustic set of songs. In this more intimate context, Umair’s cyclical guitar patterns feel open and expansive where they can occasionally sound weighty and claustrophobic in his densely-layered Abandon guise. There is still a grey cloud hanging over these songs, but Hold You Up To the Light is a much more accessible listen that allows Umair’s simple arrangements to ring out in all their downtrodden majesty, airy synths and piano occasionally lending proceedings a cinematic splendour. Lyrically, Umair is still struggling with inner demons and themes of regret, but stripped down to just voice and guitar, he is able to balance the moments of dark and light with a  deft touch, his guitar playing alternately sparse (“Good and Evil”) and dense (“Shatter”) as he finds some common ground between Red House Painters and Jesu. This is still music to soundtrack the cold months, but Hold You Up To the Light is more crisp December morning than bleak midwinter.

[Originally published in Nightshift magazine, Issue 222, Jan 2014]
http://nightshift.oxfordmusic.net/2014/jan.pdf

LR/GW - Deeper Steps Into the New Path

(Self-released, 2013)

Sound artist Lee Riley, perhaps best known for his past work as Euhedral, has been increasingly active in recent years creating vast swathes of sound armed with all manner of unorthodox (and often self-made) instruments. For an artist whose recent experiments have involved dragging a guitar through the streets of Oxford and “a piece for bowed metal container and 16 pints of water,” the idea of a stationary set of guitar noise might seem slightly pedestrian but Deeper Steps Into the New Path is anything but. Recorded live at the Pegasus Theatre in June, Deeper Steps… is – as its name suggests – an aural journey, and, for an improvised work, an impressively well-crafted one at that. Foreboding screeching notes that chime like exotic bird calls give way to waves of overlapping white noise and deep, cavernous sub-bass feedback, whilst reverberating echo and delay helps to create a disorientating sense of pulsating rhythm throughout. A running commentary for such an impressionistic piece of music would be fairly pointless, suffice it to say that Lee has managed to create a soundscape that is inviting, mysterious, and terrifying in equal measure, and one that makes for a completely immersive experience. 

[Originally published in Nightshift magazine, Issue 222, Jan 2014]
http://nightshift.oxfordmusic.net/2014/jan.pdf

Electric Six / Andy D / Stroke of Luck @ O2 Academy Oxford, 13/12/2013

One of the recurring curiosities of Oxford’s December gig listings is the annual return of Electric Six, a band who had a few hit singles in the early noughties, riding the waves of the post-millennial indie explosion, but from whom many of us have not heard much since. Hailing from the same Detroit music scene which spawned The White Stripes, you almost certainly know their debut UK single ‘Danger (High Voltage)’ (which featured a contractually-pseudonym’d Jack White on supporting vocals) and the equally catchy and playful ‘Gay Bar’, but I was curious to see how big an audience the band could command ten years after their cultural zenith.

Opening for Electric Six tonight is the student band Stroke Of Luck, whose slightly overwrought, earnest indie rock seems painfully at odds with the wilfully camp and ridiculous headliners and main support Andy D. Musically the guys seem to be fairly accomplished, if under-rehearsed, but the songs themselves are a little uninspired – imagine Coldplay with an injection of the Kooks and you’d be somewhere near. On a more like-minded bill I’m sure Stroke Of Luck could have come across far better, but as it stands they seem to have been on the rough end of some poorly-judged or cynical booking process at the O2 tonight.

If from here on out, early-noughties nostalgia is the name of the game, then Andy D is definitely the spiritual successor to Har Mar Superstar (or perhaps he’s just the bastard child of Har Mar and Peaches). Wearing a sleeveless denim jacket, pink spandex and a mullet, Andy D hits us with some straight up electro-filth, proudly proclaiming his sexual prowess, his gut flapping under the stage lights as he comically gesticulates whilst rapping about his dick. No major musical revelations to be found here – a primitive 808 providing the beat, funky synths providing the rest – but a fair amount of comedy value which perfectly lightens the mood for a set which will almost certainly be rife with sexual innuendo.

By the time Electric Six come on, the room is absolutely heaving which answers my doubts about the band being able to command a sizeable audience. While only two of the original band members still remain, frontman Dick Valentine is still a vital – if bizarre – presence on stage and is clearly enjoying himself, soaking up the abundant energy of the audience. It’s not entirely clear what percentage of the audience is here solely to hear the aforementioned singles (although I could make an educated guess), but we soon learn that the band are here promoting their ninth (!) album and as such the majority of their set appears to span all of these releases. Countering my suspicion that the band would save the real fan favourites until last, they kick into ‘Gay Bar’ almost immediately to an uproarious response which is only outdone by a faithful rendition of ‘Danger (High Voltage)’ towards the end. Strangely, other recognisable songs from their back-catalogue are missing (including ‘Dance Commander’ and their cover of Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’) but they have a dedicated portion of the audience singing along through much of their set which suggests that their appeal, while possibly dwindling, is still strong with some people here. But inevitably most of their set fails to meet the highs of their best-known songs, relying mainly on pastiche and tongue-in-cheek mimicry – funk, new wave, rock n’ roll and disco all have their place in Electric Six’s discography with varying degrees of success.

I came here for the novelty factor and to satiate my curiosity, and by both counts it was a successful night, although it was not one that I will feel the need to repeat next December.

[Originally published on Music In Oxford, 16/12/2013]
http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2013/12/16/electric-six-andy-d-stroke-of-luck-o2-academy-2-oxford-131213/

Reichenbach Falls - "Stay Home, Elizabeth"/"Needle in the Hay"

(Self-released, 2013)

Reichenbach Falls are unfortunate to have been tagged by some journalists as ‘experimental’ exponents of Americana, folk, or country, when, in reality, they don’t stray too far from a blueprint laid out by any number of NME darlings waving that Americana flag. What Reichenbach Falls do well, however, is to craft songs building on a sense of emotional urgency with jangly guitars, delicate vocals and an underlying warmth that will appeal to a lot of people. Singer Abe Davies comes in somewhere between Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and, appropriately enough, Elliott Smith who the band cover on the B-side. Going straight for the jugular, the band re-interprets ‘Needle in the Hay’ in their own image, softening some of the edges which made the original so devastating. They’ve laid a solid foundation, and if they can start to live up to their ‘experimental’ reputation then they’ll really be on to something. (TM)

[Originally published in Oxfordshire Music Magazine, issue 26]

http://www.back2left.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/OMS-26.pdf