Rock – Page 93 – 7th Level Music

Squid release “Padding” ahead of their new album due May 7th.

Earlier this year, Squid announced the release of their much-anticipated debut album, Bright Green Field, out May 7th via Warp Records. Today, they present a new single, “Paddling,” which follows the release of “Narrator” (feat. Martha Skye Murphy), and announce an onlineperformance as part of the official British Music Embassy SXSW showcase, airing Friday, March 19th at 6pm CDT.

“Paddling” has long been a staple of Squid’s incendiary live show. This psych-motorik stomper is a reaction to being thrust into an adult world as friends suddenly turn their focus to careers. Built around a drum machine loop and pulsing synth line, sonic details pepper the track as it lurches between dynamic movements. All the while, the band members share vocal duties with an infectious ease and confidence. Squid elaborates: “Written from two different perspectives, ‘Paddling’ is a song about the dichotomy between simple pleasures and decadent consumerism. Recounting a familiar scene from The Wind in the Willows, the song reminds us that although we are humans, we are ultimately animals that are driven by both modern and primal instincts, leading to vanity and machismo around us in the everyday.”

Listen to Squid’s “Paddling”

Bright Green Field is an album of towering scope and ambition that endlessly twists down unpredictable avenues. Each member – Louis Borlase (guitars/vocals), Oliver Judge(drums/vocals), Arthur Leadbetter (keyboards/strings/ percussion), Laurie Nankivell(bass/brass) and Anton Pearson (guitars/vocals) – played an equal, vital role in the album’s creation. Written in Judge’s old local pub and recorded in producer Dan Carey’s London basement studio, it includes field recordings of ringing church bells, tooting bees, microphones swinging from the ceiling orbiting a room of guitar amps, a distorted choir of 30 voices as well as a horn and string ensemble featuring Emma-Jean Thackray and Lewis Evans from Black Country, New Road.

Squid’s music – be it agitated and discordant or groove-locked and flowing – has often been a reflection of the tumultuous world we live in. As an album title, Bright Green Field conjures an almost tangible imagery of pastoral England. However, it’s something of a decoy that captures the band’s fondness for paradox and juxtaposition. Although the geography of Bright Green Fieldis an imaginary cityscape built from monolithic concrete buildings and dystopian visions, it’s also a joyous and emphatic record that marries the uncertainties of the world with a curious sense of exploration.

Watch the “Narrator” feat. Martha Skye Murphy Video

Pre-order Bright Green Field

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Alastor share “Death Cult” from upcoming album due May 28th.

Swedish rock band Alastor share the first single from their forthcoming album Onwards and Downwards today via Metal Injection. Hear and share “Death Cult” HERE. (Direct YouTube and Bandcamp.)

Excelsior! It’s the hail of yore that one should go ever onward and upward. And so, fittingly Onwards and Downwards is the occultist Swedish band Alastor’s clever call to arms… and also a reflection of our collective dark state of mind these days.

“If our last album Slave to the Grave were about death, this record is more about madness,” says guitarist Hampus Sandell. “You can look at the whole record as one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.”

Alastor is heavy doom rock for the wicked and depraved. Drenched in heavy, distorted darkness and steeped in occult horror that will make your skin crawl and ears cry sweet tears of blood, the band is revitalized in 2021 with meticulously crafted songs and new drummer Jim Nordström bringing a hard-hitting and precise energy.

“It’s a more focused record but at the same time it’s more personal and naked. More raw emotion and pain,” Hampus says. The band recorded the album with the help of Joona Hassinen of Studio Underjord, who has helped with mixing since their Blood on Satan’s Claw EP in 2017. Christoffer Karlsson of The Dahmers also assisted with overdubs and encouraged the band to demo the material early on, aiding in the album’s more deliberate and tighter feel.

From the first note of opener “The Killer In My Skull” the guitars are far thicker and out front than ever, and Nordström pummels the snare and kick like a young Dave Grohl. Bassist / vocalist Robin Arnryd’s chorus-drenched voice soars above it all like a one-man choir, at times harmonizing beautifully with shimmering Hammond organ notes. Nary a moment is wasted on the droning navel-gazing of lesser bands. Particularly, the driving anthem “Death Cult” which sounds like it would fit comfortably on QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf, though there’s considerably more heft here. The title track pays its due to the Devil’s tritone in a marvelously woven framework of intertwining melodies befitting the album’s theme of descent into madness.

The quartet released its epic 3-song debut album Black Magic in early 2017 via Twin Earth Records, followed by the 2-track Blood on Satan’s Claw EP on Halloween the same year. Joining forces with RidingEasy Records in 2018, Alastor summoned the 7-track hateful gospel Slave to the Grave, which was packed with dynamic twists and turns, and funereal girth. It was met with considerable praise, setting the stage for the band’s greatest step onward (and upward… or downward, depending on your preferences.)

Onwards and Downwards will be available on LP, CD and download on May 28th, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Review: Holy Monitor – Southern Lights

Hailing from Athens, Greece, Holy Monitor (Alex Bolpasis – bass, Dimitris Doumouliakas – drums, Stefanos Mitsis – guitar, Vangelis Mitsis – keyboards, and George Nikas – vocals and guitar) combines psych-rock, kraut rock, stoner rock, space rock, and even ambient music on their new album Southern Lights.

Opening track “River” has fuzzy guitars, psychedelic organ chords, and heavy drums telling a lovely tale of the night sky reflected in moving waters. “Naked in the Rain” has a great 1960s garage-psych groove to it as Holy Monitor calls for us to “shine on” through tough times.

“Blue Whale” is a tale of a mystical creature or woman (perhaps one and the same) that exists in the mind of Nikas. The title track lays on the reverb, both on the guitars and the vocals, creating a hypnotizing brew. “The Sky Is Falling Down” seems to be a reaction to a large portion of the world going for each other’s throats in the middle of a pandemic (“It sounds like madness, but I know you’re feeling lonely. It sounds like madness, but we’re falling in a state of slumber.”). The song starts chaotic, then drifts into a neat dream-space before it fades out…and then rockets forth again with some of Doumouliakas’ biggest cymbal crashes and Vangelis Mitsis’ heaviest synth-stabs.

“Hourglass” is a nice, synth-based, instrumental palate cleanser before the heavy psych of “Ocean Trail” (with Stefanos Mitsis and Nikas upping the fuzz on their guitars even more). The album ends with another water-themed track, “Under the Sea.” It’s a nice slice of cosmic rock that, like “The Sky Is Falling Down,” talks about the COVID-19 pandemic, but with hope instead of concern. “One summer night, a stranger approached me, like people did before they got sick. He touched my hand and told me his story. I always had a curiosity,” Nikas sings. We all dream of returning to times when we could at least have the chance to engage in a meaningful conversation with a stranger.

We all dream of drifting away and leaving COVID-19 behind us, and albums like Southern Lights make the waiting easier.

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[Thanks to Stratos Psilos.]

Kalbells release dreamy new single, “Diagram of Me Sleeping,” ahead of full album due March 26th.

Kalbells—the collaborative synth/art-pop project of Kalmia Traver, Angelica Bess, Sarah Pedinotti, and Zoë Brecher—today shared their dreamy new single, “Diagram of Me Sleeping”, from the upcoming full-length, Max Heart, releasing March 26 via NNA Tapes.

Each track from Max Heart excavates love and creativity from a new and surprising ventricle of life—and “Diagram” fits right in as a lofty ode to sleep, brought to reality with jazzy bedroom-pop melodies, swoony sax, and playfully surreal lyricism. Traver explains how the song came to fruition: “I woke up one morning and my legs felt relaxed and pillowy like two lovers tangled together in mindless warmth and it was pleasant beyond the sensical and I wrote this song. I’ve come to crave sleep almost like love itself. Sleep is where so much of our creativity happens, in dreams & in the spaces between them. I love thinking of my body as a landscape, and sleep is the time I get to roam it freely.”

Traver adds about the recording/mixing process: “I especially loved tracking drums & bass on this recording. We were recording straight to tape at Outlier Inn in the Catskills and the sounds we were getting for Zoë & Sarah were sending shivers up our spines, we were prancing around all giddy. I mixed Max Heart (my first time mixing an album! – I taught myself the skill of mixing during the initial covid quarantine, alone for 4 months in my apartment NYC) and mixing this song was so easy because the sounds we got were so good and the song was simple. It was very satisfying and created a blueprint for mixing the rest of the record.”

The sophomore album from Kalbells, illustrates the formidable love Kalmia Traver (Rubblebucket) discovered with her touring band turned bandmates. Together, Angelica Bess (Giraffage, Body Language), Zoë Becher (Hushpuppy, Sad13), Sarah Pedinotti (Okkervil River, LipTalk) and Traver, practice both listening and accountability, rejoicing in their queerness, and promoting each other to be their most genuine selves. The result is Max Heart—ten vibrant and subtly layered tracks of mesmerizing psychedelic synth-pop. Common groove language is a rare medicine to happen across, which is why, as a group, playing together has been not only exciting, but healing. Max Heart harnesses this magnetic power for a collection of songs that are packed with inspired tension and daring surreality. Read the full bio here.

Max Heart is available to pre-order on standard black & “Salty Pickle” green vinyl, as well as on compact disc and digital formats here. The album will be available on “Red Marker” red vinyl exclusively from local indie record stores.

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[Thanks to Cody at Clandestine PR.]

Current Joys releases “Amateur” ahead of new album due May 14th.

Current Joys – the project of Nick Rattigan – announces signing to Secretly Canadian for its seventh album, Voyager, to be released May 14th, and shares the first single/video, “Amateur.” Voyager rattles with the live-wire feeling that’s thrummed through all of Rattigan’s previous releases: quavering, scream-itself-hoarse vocals and self-interrogation via song. But here, that bristling, sentimental rock ‘n’ roll cacophony is overlaid with a soundtrack orchestra guiding it along. It’s an odyssey, a grand-sounding journey of self-discovery spread across sixteen tracks. Part ekphrasis, part personal, it’s Rattigan learning new ways to understand his own feelings and identity while inspired by the highly-stylized, striking storytelling of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, Lars Von Trier, Terrence Malick, Agnès Varda, and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Voyager, Rattigan’s most mature release to date, is an evolution built on Current Joys’ prolific output since 2013. A Nevada native, Rattigan began Current Joys in Reno, before moving to New York after school and busting his ass working as a production assistant in the film/TV industry. He relocated to Los Angeles in 2016, and the songs that make up Voyager began coming together shortly after. Each piece of Current Joys’ previous discography is wholly built and envisioned by Rattigan, self-recorded and quickly released, quivering with a lonely intensity. Within six months of beginning the project, Current Joys had already released its debut, Wild Heart; by 2018, the sixth Current Joys full length and visual album, A Different Age, was out. All the while, Current Joys’ profile quickly and quietly ascended, selling out venues like LA’s El Rey along with European tours, simultaneously amassing millions of streams of the catalog, and a dedicated following.

On Voyager, Rattigan eschews lo-fi home recordings for a full band and recording sessions at Stinson Beach Studios. As a vocalist/drummer in his other band Surf Curse, Rattigan had finally opened up to the possibility of working in a professional studio. But while the audiences and songwriting/recording approaches changed and continue to evolve for Current Joys, the inspiration Rattigan draws from cinema remains a guiding force. Frequently he uses film as a jumping off point for songwriting. Lead single “Amateur” and its video reflects his affinity for the cinematic. The track is piano-heavy, a slow-build of tension, flitting with prettiness. The self-directed video features Rattigan in costume, chaotically driving a retro car.

Watch “Amateur” Video:
https://youtu.be/0sDWu2ioRqw

Rattigan, who stays up all night to perfect the sequencing of his records once they’re recorded, doesn’t set out with a typical aesthetic in mind – instead, it just happens. Performing is his catharsis. Which feels palpable on Voyager; there’s fragments of hours spent watching movies, as well as stories from his own life; there’s overly-caffeinated car rides blasting the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa; there’s inspiration taken from the crooning presence of frontmen like Jeff Buckley, Chris Isaak, and Nick Cave, as evidenced on Rattigan’s cover of the Boys Next Door’s “Shivers.” And there’s the simple, ecstatic energy of getting a bunch of friends in the studio.

It’s all held together by the fervor of Rattigan’s creative process. He believes in the premonitory power of music, and he latches onto the song ideas that strike him in the moment, propelled by an abstract existentialism or burst of feeling more than anything else. It imbues Voyager with an intensity and intimacy – with the sense that you’re getting to hear, all at once, the disparate parts that make a project – or person – into a sprawling, cinematic whole.
Watch “Amateur” Video:
https://youtu.be/0sDWu2ioRqw

Pre-order Voyager:
https://current-joys.ffm.to/voyager

Voyager Tracklist:
1. Dancer in the Dark
2. American Honey
3. Naked
4. Altered States
5. Breaking the Waves6. Big Star
7. Amateur
8. Rebecca
9. Shivers
10. Something Real
11. Money Making Machine
12. Voyager pt. 1
13. Calypso
14. The Spirit or the Curse
15. Vagabond
16. Voyager pt. 2

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[Thanks to Jim and Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

CHAI team up with Ric Wilson for “Maybe Chocolate Chips.”

CHAI photo by Yoshio Nakaiso, Ric Wilson photo by Jackie Lee Young

Japanese quartet CHAI present a new single/video, “Maybe Chocolate Chips” (Feat. Ric Wilson), from their forthcoming album, WINK, due May 21st on Sub Pop. CHAI’s past albums have been filled with playful references, in the lyrics, to food, and WINK’s intimate single “Maybe Chocolate Chips” offers an evolution of this motif. Bassist/lyricist YUUKI wanted to write a self-love song about her moles: “Things that we want to hold on to, things that we wished went away. A lot of things happen as we age and with that for me, is new moles! But I love them! My moles are like the chocolate chips on a cookie, the more you have, the happier you become! and before you know it, you’re an original♡”

Chicago rapper Ric Wilson, who they initially connected with at the 2019 Pitchfork Music Festival, brings smooth vocals over a laidback beat and whirring, dreamy synth. A community activist and artist based on the Southside of Chicago, he got his start with the legendary Young Chicago Authors, the Chicago-based storytelling and poetry organization which helped launch the likes of Noname, Saba, Jamila Woods, Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, Mick Jenkins, and many others. He’s also featured in the accompanying video, directed by Callum Scott-Dyson, which is made of fun collages and video clips in classic CHAI style. Ric added: “Super in love with this new song with CHAI, a song about loving yourself & understanding your beautiful no matter what oppressive societal norms are telling you is beautiful. I hope folks can wake up and jam this while they make their coffee, or enjoy just sitting outside an open field. This year we’ve all spent a little more time with ourselves, let’s find the beauty in it.”

CHAI elaborates on the video: “This music video is the perfect visual for ‘Maybe Chocolate Chips.’ It was our first time working with Callum and the result (animation, etc.) was something we’d never tried before! Callum actually reached out to us for this but we loved how his work featured grotesque but cute components and tons of fantasy so our vision for this was in line. ♡⭐️^o^♡ Your mole is actually a Chocolate Chip! But you knew that already right?!♡⭐️♡”

WATCH CHAI’S VIDEO FOR “MAYBE CHOCOLATE CHIPS” (FEAT. RIC WILSON)

CHAI is made up of identical twins MANA (lead vocals and keys) and KANA (guitar), drummer YUNA, and bassist-lyricist YUUKI. Following the release of 2019’s PUNK, CHAI’s adventures took them around the world, playing their high-energy and buoyant shows at music festivals like Primavera Sound and Pitchfork Music Festival, and touring with indie-rock mainstays like Whitney and Mac DeMarco. Like all musicians, CHAI spent 2020 forced to rethink the fabric of their work and lives. But CHAI took this as an opportunity to shake up their process and bring their music somewhere thrillingly new. Having previously used their maximalist recordings to capture the exuberance of their live shows, CHAI instead focused on crafting the slightly-subtler and more introspective kinds of songs they enjoy listening to at home—where, for the first time, they recorded all of the music. They draw R&B and hip-hop into their mix (Mac Miller, the Internet, and Brockhampton were on their minds) of dance-punk and pop-rock, all while remaining undeniably CHAI. While the band leaned into a more personal sound, WINK is also the first CHAI album to feature contributions from outside producers (Mndsgn, YMCK) as well as Ric Wilson. This impulse towards connection with others is in WINK’s title, too. After the “i” of PINK and the “u” of PUNK—which represented the band’s act of introducing themselves, and then of centering their audiences—they have come full circle with the “we” of WINK. It signals CHAI’s relationship with the outside world, an embrace of profound togetherness. Through music, as CHAI said, “we are all coming together.” In that act of opening themselves up, CHAI grew into their best work: “This album showed us, we’re ready to do more.”
WATCH THE “ACTION” VIDEO

WATCH THE “PLASTIC LOVE” VIDEO

WATCH THE “DONUTS MIND IF I DO” VIDEO

PRE-ORDER WINK

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Sun Crow – Quest for Oblivion

Hailing from the often gloomy, rain-soaked lands of Seattle, Washington, Sun Crow (Keith Hastreiter – drums, Ben Nechanicky – guitars, Brian Steel – bass, and Charles Wilson – vocals) are another one of those bands I stumbled upon via YouTube’s algorithm when it guided me toward their new album Quest for Oblivion. For a while I kept misremembering their name as “Skull Crow” or “Crow Skull,” which I’m sure are names of other cosmic / stoner / doom metal bands somewhere. Sun Crow’s name, however, brings to mind images of a fiercely intelligent, perhaps malevolent creature silhouetted by the sun at dusk, noon, or dawn – and unsettling no matter the time of day.

You’d better be ready to deliver if you name your album Quest for Oblivion, and Sun Crow are more than prepared. The shortest track on the album is just under five minutes in length. Half are over ten minutes each, and all of them are epic, monolithic power drives. Good grief, the opening track, “Collapse,” is like the sound of the namesake giant insect breaking free from its icy tomb in The Deadly Mantis and then proceeded to wreck everything in its path. “Black It Out” has Wilson’s vocals bouncing off high fortress walls while Steel’s bass launching fireballs at invading armies.

“End Over End” seems to stumble around like a sleepy mastodon for a couple moments as it shakes the frost off its wool and prepares to enter into combat with a giant squid that’s preying upon smaller creatures on the edge of a dark lake. Trust me, you’ll understand when you hear it. “Fell Across the Sky” is a powerful tale of some sort of cosmic event, perhaps the one that wiped out the mammoths, and Nechanicky’s guitar has a cool fuzzed reverb throughout it that’s outstanding. Wilson’s screams on “Fear” are pure metal, and Sun Crow wisely blends them with the guitars and Hastreiter’s fire giant heartbeat drumming so neither element overwhelms another.

“Nothing Behind” has a rocking, stomp the pedal to the metal groove. It’s practically made for drag racing. “Hypersonic” starts with shredding cacophony and then melds into a solid, head-banging groove for over nine minutes with some of Wilson’s clearest lyrics about the eventual end of man and the emergence of some…other thing nipping at our heels from the shadows. The closer, “Titans,” is as heavy and powerful as its namesake, and drifts into a great low-key section to lull you into a sense of foreboding before it comes at you like the Kraken rising out of the sea.

This is heavy stuff, but that’s what you want from an album called Quest for Oblivion. You’d be disappointed if it didn’t sound like something you’d play in your starship as you landed on a primordial sphere in deep space.

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Field Music announce new album, “Flat White,” with release of a new single – “No Pressure.”

Last month, Field Music – the English “national treasures” (NME) composed of Sunderland-born brothers Peter and David Brewis – shared their single “Orion From The Street,” a track which built some considerable excitement among the Field Music-faithful (including their fellow indie veteran The New Pornographers’ AC Newman) about what might becoming next from the band. Ever prolific, the duo have released two full lengths since 2018 that neatly encapsulate the band’s unique approach: a critically-adored new wave-addled art pop LP about Brexit in 2018s Open Here, and a high concept song cycle about the aftermath of the First World War, Making A New World in 2020. Today, the band are announcing their 8th studio full length Flat White Moon (due out April 23rd via Memphis Industries), and sharing the album’s lead single “No Pressure.”

LISTEN: Field Music’s “No Pressure” HERE

After a pair of albums that have skewed towards the more ornate and esoteric extremes of the band’s sound, their latest began as an attempt to make something more direct and “physical,” with songs inspired by ’70s rock and folk influences, that later evolved to encompass the organic-feeling, sample-based approach found on albums like Beck’s Odelay and De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising. For the most part, the album has fewer explicitly political themes than previous records, though lead single “No Pressure” (which is accompanied by a video that pokes fun of YouTube musical instructional videos) tackles the political classes, in what David Brewis describes as a kind of inversion of the lyrics of David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure.”

“It feels like we’re in a new political paradigm where no one takes responsibility for anything and, even worse, they don’t seem to feel any shame or remorse about it,” David Brewis explains. “The song is like a mirror image of ‘Under Pressure’. But if that was about ‘people on the street,’ this is mostly from the perspective of someone up on high insisting that nothing is his fault while the rest of us scratch around trying to hold things together.“

As part of the announcement of the new album, Field Music have shared plans for a live stream show to celebrate the release of the LP that will take place at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on April 29th. Tickets are available for purchase here.

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

Iceage return with new single – “Vendetta.”

Copenhagen’s Iceage – Elias Bender Rønnenfelt, Jakob Tvilling Pless, Johan Surrballe Wieth, and Dan Kjær Nielsen – announce their fifth album, Seek Shelter, out May 7th on Mexican Summer. Today, they present a new single/video, “Vendetta,” which follows “The Holding Hand,” “an ominous transmission from a band who can summon a storm like few others” (Pitchfork). Enrolling Sonic Boom (Pete Kember of Spacemen 3) to produce the record and an additional guitarist in the form of Casper Morilla Fernandez, Seek Shelter sees Iceage’s propulsive momentum pushing them in new, expansive, ecstatic directions. A decade on from their first record, Iceage continue to harness their lives together through music.

Rønnenfelt casts the influence of Kember, the band’s first outside producer, as that of a sparring partner, another wayward mind to bounce ideas off of (along with Shawn Everett, who mixed the record) to help shape the sound. For Seek Shelter’s story of scorched-earth salvation, Iceage’s songwriting embraces conventional structures more conspicuously than it has in the past. The dirge-like drone that opens the record gives way to a wall of reverb that sounds fuller and brighter than anything they’ve committed to tape, signalling a clarity of clouds breaking. The Lisboa Gospel Collective, who joined the band for two tracks on the final day in the studio, provide a new scale to Rønnenfelt’s incantations.

As with all Iceage’s previous albums, Rønnenfelt stowed away for a set period of weeks and wrote the lyrics for Seek Shelter in one shot. Here, his lyrics reach grand heights despite its classic opacity — he sings of taking shelter, of tranquil affections that threaten to combust, and of a limp-wristed god with a cavalcade of devotees in search of relief. His expressionist imagery consistently hinges on the divine, a natural result of his desire to take a kernel of ordinary emotion and, as he explains, “blow it up like a balloon.”

On the slow-grooving new single, “Vendetta,” an electronic beat and blues signatures break through to the front. Rønnenfelt comments, “Crime is the undercurrent that runs through everything. If you don’t see it, you’re not looking. In its invincible politics, it is the glue that binds it all together. ‘Vendetta’ is an impartial dance along the illicit lines of infraction.”

The accompanying video features the band, as well as actor Zlatko Burić. Director Jonas Bang explains, “We wanted it to be less 1:1 story and more short format collage-ish – like if you flick through a chapter in a book reading a bit here and there.”

Watch Iceage’s Video for “Vendetta”

While recording, rain dripped through cracks in the ceiling of Namouche, the dilapidated wood-paneled vintage studio in Lisbon where Iceage set up for 12 days. The band had to arrange their equipment around puddles. Pieces of cloth covered slowly filling buckets so the sound of raindrops wouldn’t reach the microphones. Kember arranged garden lamps for mood lighting in the high-ceiling space. It was the longest time Iceage had ever spent making an album. When the rain had stopped, Seek Shelter revealed itself as a collection of songs radiating warmth and a profound desire for salvation in a world that’s spinning further and further out of control. Even Rønnenfelt was surprised with what they were able to create together. “When we started, I think we were just lashing out, completely blindfolded with no idea as to why and how we were doing anything. For Seek Shelter, we had a definite vision of how we wanted the album to be carved out, yet still the end result came as a surprise in terms of where we sonically were able to push our boundaries.” He’s speaking of the new record and also of their entire existence as a band, a travelogue that has catapulted these four friends far past the horizons of punk.

Watch “The Holding Hand” Video

Pre-order Seek Shelter

Seek Shelter Tracklist
1. Shelter Song
2. High & Hurt
3. Love Kills Slowly
4. Vendetta
5. Drink Rain
6. Gold City
7. Dear Saint Cecilia
8. The Wider Powder Blue
9. The Holding Hand

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Review: Bantha Rider – Binary Sunset Massacre

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Star Wars-themed stoner / cosmic metal is a thing. I don’t know how much of a thing it is, but apparently it’s a thing in Warsaw, Poland – home of Bantha Rider. The name lets you know that the members envision themselves as Tusken Raiders on the desolate desert wastes of Tattooine. Their newest album, Binary Sunset Massacre, is as fierce as the album’s cover and subjects appear.

The title track is a brief instrumental introduction (the album is entirely instrumentals) that unleashes the power of “De Wanna Wanga” (a phrase known to Star Wars: Return of the Jedi fans) like a horde of charging Sand People attacking a surprised Storm Trooper outpost near the Sarlac pit. The bass alone on “The Gammorean” (the horned “boar-men” of Star Wars) hits as heavy as an axe sharpened on the bones of its enemies.

The guitar solo on “Boonta Eve” is positively cosmic, and the song starts with what sounds like spacecraft revving up for travel. “Sagittarius” is also pure cosmic rock. “Rancor’s Delight” starts with sounds of the massive beast’s footfalls and roar before it erupts into heavy, heavy riffs that channel the sense of dread Luke Skywalker felt upon being dropped into a pit containing the monster.

I love the way the bass and drums seem to stumble around a bit at the beginning of “March of the Banthas.” Banthas are huge, horned, furry beasts who take their time across the desert, and the song takes its time with chugging riffs and hefty beats. The album ends with “Pazuzu” – a psychedelic trip enshrouded in dark mystery (it is named after the Mesopotamian king of demons, after all) that lasts over thirteen head-trippy minutes.

It’s a wild ride, and enjoyable for Star Wars and stoner metal fans. It’s a win-win if you like both.

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