Category: Reviews

Review: Oh Sees – Levitation Sessions

Recorded live in the parking lot of the famous Pappy and Harriet’s music venue in Pioneertown, California, Levitation Sessions by OSees is another great live set put together by the Reverb Appreciation Society and the folks behind the Levitation Music Festival. It’s also another great live album from Osees / Oh Sees / Thee Oh Sees / OCS (By the way, John Dwyer, if you’re reading this – I recommend “Eau Seas” for the next spelling, possibly calling the album under that moniker Water Weird.) that brings out some old tracks the band hadn’t played in years.

The album / show starts with the crowd favorite “Carrion Crawler,” getting things off to a deceptively quiet opening before unleashing rock fury. Mr. Dwyer (lead singer / guitarist) and his crew (Tim Hellman – bass, David Rincon – drums, Paul Quattrone – drums, Tomas Dolas – keyboards) give you a four-count to catch your breath before launching “I Come from the Mountain” at you like a rocket. “Static God” is the re-entry burn of that same rocket, and by now you’re holding on for dear life. Hellman’s bass is the harness keeping you in the rocket’s seat while Rincon and Quattrone are the sounds of the heat shield nearing critical failure. Dolas’ keys rise as Dwyer screams, “It doesn’t matter at all – your fucking institutions!” Impermanence is the only real thing.

The post / garage punk of “Sewer Fire” is outstanding and might cause you to pogo in your living room or office. Just try not to do it in your car while driving. “Chem Farmer / Nite Expo” blends keyboard-heavy prog-jazz with mammoth-heavy riffs and cymbal crashes. It ends with Dwyer yelling, “We have fun!” “Dreary Nonsense” is both fiery and goofy, which means it’s great. “The Fizz” is one of those older tracks they haven’t played in a while, and it has a great call-and-response chorus and fun keyboard dexterity from Dolas.

“Corrupt Coffin” and “Together Tomorrow,” both each under two minutes, blend together like a punk cocktail made out of Red Bull, sweat, vodka, and highly caffeinated Earl Grey tea. “Night Crawler” is pure psychedelic fuzz to lull you into a smoky headspace. You take a breath, and then “Terminal Jape” comes around the corner to mug you and then shove you into oncoming traffic. “The system has been broken down!” Dwyer grunts as the whole band turns into a tsunami. “Rainbow” slows things down a bit, but it’s almost a feint because “Heart Worm” is a straight-up punk boot to the head. “The world’s so fucked up!” Dwyer sings. It’s hard to argue with him if you watch the news.

The band pauses a moment before “Transparent World Jam” melts your mind and perhaps your body into lava lamp ooze. As Oh Sees like to do, they end with a mostly instrumental jam. This one is the nearly twelve-minute-long “Block of Ice” – a track that reminds you of Zappa, Allman Brothers, 13th Floor Elevators, and My Bloody Valentine all at once.

Few things can top the energy of a live Oh Sees show, and capturing that energy in a recording is a colossal feat. Levitation Sessions sounds great and the record’s mastering by J.J. Golden cannot be understated. This is a nice appetizer for, hopefully, many more live shows to come.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Holy Motors – Horse

At first blush, you’d never guess that Holy Motors is from Estonia. Their music sounds like shoegaze made by a band that grew up in the American southwest and spent their teen years making out with their respective lovers atop red rock mesas during sunsets and then spent the night drinking spiked yerba mate and counting stars.

Yet, they are from another continent. Their love of Americana and psychedelia is evident from the first track of their new album, Horse. On “Country Church,” lead singer Eliann Tulve tells a tale of a cowboy facing a moral crisis and looking for guidance, but the “country church is only open on Sundays, but the night comes down on me every day.” The guitars shimmer but have a dusty edge to their riffs throughout the track.

“Endless Night” would fit right into a David Lynch film with Tulve’s reverbed vocals, the hazy guitar chords, and the distant drum beats in the tale of lust and theft in a seedy roadside motel. The sad country blues guitar of “Midnight Cowboy” adds a classic touch to Tulve’s tale of unrequited love (“You’re the stream I never swam in…”). “Road Stars” has two tired people realizing they could be tired together if they could get past their vices and egos.

“Matador” is another spooky road story as Tulve sings of being on the run from creepy men in her hotel room and spending every cent she can get on gas so she can keep moving. The guitars on the track go deep into psychedelic visions during the chorus and the simple drum beat is almost a tribal chant. The guitars turn into mesquite smoke on “Come On, Slowly.”

The guitars on “Trouble” bring spaghetti western scores to mind with their mix of bold chords and echoed soft touches. The stunning instrumental closer, “Life Valley (So Many Miles Away),” is like a long lost Velvet Underground or Traffic cut that sinks deep into your veins and carries you away from whatever you’re dealing with at the moment.

Horse is one of those records that lures in the back of your head once you hear it and emerges in serene moments. It’s a record that, if you hear part of it in passing, will stick with you and make you seek it.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

Review: Teenager – Good Time

It’s not hyperbole to say that Toronto post-punks Teenager almost died while making their new album, Good Time. As the story goes, the band created it in a new space they rented for two years underneath a restaurant. Among the many things they had to deal with while working on Good Time were rats, power outages, flooding, mold, and a carbon dioxide leak that threatened everyone in the building. To then call the record that came out of this chaos “Good Time” is, I imagine, a delightful inside joke. It’s also a delightful record, so it all equals out fine.

Opening track “Beige” immediately brings early B-52’s cuts to mind with its snappy bass, swelling synths, and lyrics about everything being the same day in and day out. Teenager couldn’t have predicted two years ago how relevant this song would be in 2020. “I’m stuck in a strange wave. Everything starts to feel beige,” they sing. Everything is bland and every city neighborhood looks the same. Now, our daily routines and homes fall into this category.

The jagged angle guitars of “Trillium Song” are like a breath of fresh post-punk air in a world clogged by bro-rock smog. “Pleasure” has a bit of a Japanese punk rock vibe to it with its fun, echoing guitars and Devo-like synths as they sing, “Too much pressure for pleasure, and pleasure takes pressure.” That might be the most Zen thing I’ve read so far this month.

“Romance for Rent” is a standout. It’s a tale of a man seeking romance online since he’s incapable, or just unwilling, to find it in real life. Again, the Teenager of 2018 could not have predicted how perfect this song would be in 2020, as many of us, for the sake of our health, have to find connections online. The percussion on this track is great, mixing a full kit with conga and other hand percussion. The whole track clicks perfectly and is one of my favorite singles of the year.

“Straight to Computer” is a dire warning about the online stuff they mention in the previous track. Teenager encourage us to get outside and away from these things that are designed to keep us indoors and barraged with advertising. “Can’t remember yesterday, can’t remember what I did today,” they sing in the opening of the title track – a song about how everyone’s in the same boat and often putting on the same mask to hide that they’re miserable. It’s hard to tell where the guitars end and the synths begin in this track, which is to say that it sounds pretty neat.

The guitars on “Touching Glass” move back and forth between heavy rock riffs and bouncy post-punk grooves. The closing track, “The Drain,” could refer to cleaning out their flooded basement studio, the general feel of malaise in this day and age, or both. It’s full of bold guitars that build to a fun, hopeful energy despite its lyrics about acid rain, depression, and being in a funk. By the end you’re thinking the song isn’t about falling into a dark hole. It’s about letting negativity wash off you down the drain and away from you forever.

To put out a record this good despite all the challenges Teenager went through to complete it is damn impressive and inspirational. We all need to get off our collective keisters and do something with this bonus time we’ve been given (if, granted, we are healthy and secure enough to do so). Teenager show that we can all have a good time, a great time, if we choose to grow.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Tom at Hive Mind PR.]

Review: The Death Wheelers – Divine Filth

What do you get when you combine Mötorhead, The Cramps, Misfits, surf rock, grindhouse movies, hallucinogens, guitar, bass, and drums? You get The Death Wheelers and their new album, Divine Filth.

The album is pretty much the soundtrack to a lost post-apocalyptic movie involving bikers fighting the living dead, or a Satanic cult, or an evil corporation, or all three. The Death Wheelers are known for creating albums like this, and their records make you wish you had some sort of teleportation device that could take you to the alternate dimension where these films exist.

“Welcome to Spurcity” opens the album with deep synth-wave bass that brings to mind 1980’s slasher films (and the power tool guitars certainly help), and then the guitars, bass, and drums kick in with stoner-doom power to set you back on your heels. It ends with the sound of the bands’ motorcycles racing off into a zombie wasteland. “Ditchfinder General,” a nice play on the Vincent Price film Witchfinder General, is brilliant thrash metal that transitions into spaghetti western rock. It works, believe me.

“DTA (Sucicycle Tendencies)” begins with instructions on how to smoke a joint before thudding bass, agile guitar shredding, and military march drums come in to cause a miniature riot. The title track comes at you like machine gun fire after we hear a group of men declare war on another gang who’s been picking them off one by one. It’s non-stop after this little bit of dialogue. You can hardly catch your breath for four minutes.

“Lobotomobile,” believe it or not, brings in surf rock elements. “Born mean. Savage servants of the devil!” is the opening line to the raucous “Corps Mortis” – which seems to up the bass and swap the metal guitar riffs with 1960s garage rock grooves. The drumming on it, by the way, is batshit crazy.

The opening lines of “Murder Machines – Biker Mortis” are, “It is the biker’s drug. / How dangerous is it? / It’s very dangerous.” That pretty much sums up the whole album, not just the song. Everything on Divine Filth has a rusty saw blade edge to it (but look and listen carefully and you’ll see the rest of that blade is highly polished by expert craftsmen). “Motörgasm – Carnal Pleasures Pt. 1” is a wild, sexy, psychedelic, and, yes, funky jam that must’ve been just as fun for them to play as it is for us to hear.

“Chopped Back to Life” sounds like a bar fight that leads to a foot chase that then leads to a motorcycle chase that ends up in a junkyard next to a cemetery where the people in the fight end up having to team up to fight zombies from next door – but still end up finishing their fight once the zombies are dead (again). “Road Rite” starts with a quote from, if I’m not mistaken, Pink Flamingos, so The Death Wheelers’ love of trash and exploitation cinema crosses multiple boundaries – which only makes me appreciate them more. The album’s closer, “Nitrus,” would make Dick Dale proud – as it sizzles with his style of playing and frantic surf drums that send the record off on a roaring note.

I should mention that this wild, face-shredding instrumental album was recorded in two days. This hardly seems possibly when you hear it. A live Death Wheelers performance must be like standing in front of an open blast furnace if they can make an album this powerful in 48 hours or less.

Keep your mind open.

[It would be divine if you subscribed.]

[Thanks to Dave as US / THEM Group.]

Rewind Review: Screaming Females – Castle Talk (2010)

Screaming Females’ (Mike Abbatte – bass, Jarrett Dougherty – drums, Marissa Paternoster – guitar and vocals) fourth album, Castle Talk, features a drawing (by Paternoster) of a horse on its cover. The horse’s tail seems to be made of fire. It’s a fitting image for an album that often charges straight at you like those horses from Krull that move so fast they leave behind trails of fire.

Opening track “Laura + Marty” opens with doom metal chords before it abruptly switches into almost power-pop riffs and post-punk bass grooves. “I Don’t Mind It” could and should be a big radio hit as Paternoster sings a peppy song about heartbreak. Dougherty’s “not as easy as they sound” beats are a highlight of “Boss.” His switches between hard rock beats and jazz timing are sharp.

The raucous energy of “Normal” gets your whole body shaking. “A New Kid” has this cool warped sound to it that I love (especially in Abbatte’s drunken circus clown bass), and, good heavens, Paternoster’s riffs on it blow you out of your boots. Her vocals on “Fall Asleep” are layered with fuzz, almost taking a back seat to her shredding – which is somehow smooth and buzzsaw-like at the same time.

“Wild” has soaring solos that contrast with Paternoster’s soft vocals about missing a lover. “I wanna be your late night crisis line. I wanna give you all a piece of my mind,” Paternoster sings on the snappy and snarky “Nothing at All.” “Sheep,” (a solid rocker about infidelity – “You’ll count sheep with anyone, and anyone will do.”) is a great example of what makes Screaming Females so good – their ability to make effortless turns from soft tones to face-melting riffs. “Deluxe” starts out with a left-in blooper before it drifts into a slightly psychedelic, echoed, acoustic track that lets you catch your breath for a moment. Castle Talk ends with “Ghost Solo” – a song that builds behind Dougherty’s rumbling floor toms and Abbatte’s almost-disco bass to Paternoster’s defiant vocals (“This is it, it’s the last time you set me up.”) and guitar riffs that sound like a delighted bird of prey.

It’s a good send-off to the record and a good addition to any fan’s collection of the band’s material. Few bands can make love songs that are both heart-tugging and head-exploding at the same time. Castle Talk is full of such tracks.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Viscerals

Any album by the Newcastle quintet Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs should come with a roll of duct tape to secure your face to your head due to the constant threat of band’s booming, fuzzed-out riffs blasting it to smithereens. Their newest record, Viscerals, is no exception.

Beginning with mosh-pit inducing drums by Christopher Morley, “Reducer” takes off like an experimental rocket car across desolate salt flats. It shifts momentarily into bass-heavy sludge from John-Michael Hedley and echoing vocals by Matt Baty telling us that “Ego kills everything.” He’s right, of course, and that statement is woefully apparent in the 2020 political climate. The swirling guitars of Ian Sykes and Sam Grant on “Rubbernecker” produce a pulsing effect that creeps up your spine and settles somewhere in your amygdala.

“I’m dancing with the devil with his two left feet,” Baty sings on the creepy, jarring “New Body,” which is over seven minutes of controlled chaos as Baty yells, “I don’t feel a thing!” to a red-tinged harvest moon while standing in a thaumaturgic circle. Or at least the ceiling in the recording studio while standing in comfy sneakers. I’m not sure. The short “Blood and Butter” is a haunting spoken word track that melts into the thrash metal-like “World Crust,” which sounds heavy enough to crack its namesake.

“Death is in bloom!” Baty shouts on the doom-psych killer cut “Crazy in Blood.” It’s a standout track on a standout record and the type of song that makes everyone stop and listen. “Halloween Bolson” is bubbles like a witch’s cauldron and then builds to a rapid boil of space rock guitars and enough fuzzy bass to awaken a hibernating grizzly. The song crunches for nine straight minutes and, just when it lets you catch your breath, it cracks you in the head again with another massive riff. The closer “Hell’s Teeth” is a great shout-and-response track (“Let’s rock! In peace!”) that is both radio friendly and potentially speaker-damaging.

Viscerals is true to its name, as every song is either savage or seething, often both. It’s a powerful record for bizarre times that brings things into focus through fuzz.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Mars Red Sky – self-titled (2012)

Any album that is (apart from two songs) recorded in a Spanish national park is bound to be interesting. Any album recorded in a Spanish national park that is also as heavy as Mars Red Sky‘s self-titled debut album is stunning.

I mean, good heavens, the first lines of the first track, “Strong Reflection,” are “Dead stars are burning in the sky, their light reflecting in your eyes, and here the ravens don’t show. Where I’ve been, you don’t want to know.” That alone is metal AF, so the heavy bass that moves like a mastodon, the drums that hammer like its heart, and the guitar that wails like its trumpet blast is heavy enough to knock down your garage. “Curse” is a throwback to 1970’s stoner rock with its echoing lyrics, fuzzed-out guitars, and lyrics about acid rain and how “The greatest fun, it’s not fun at all.”

“Falls” is a wild instrumental blending guitar psychedelia with thunderstorm-like drumming and bass so gritty that you could probably sand lumber with it. “Way to Rome” is a tale of gladiators (or slaves, or both since they were often one and the same) preparing for death. You can’t go wrong with lyrics like “Ride the dark horse through the fire, through the storm, as we’re set to die in the heart of the sun.” Again, metal AF, and the song shifts like sand dunes back and forth between psychedelic rock, stoner metal, and even a bit of krautrock.

“Saddle Point” is another cool instrumental, and “Marble Sky” is a harrowing tale of burning entrails, crushed mountains, and beings emerging from holes in the sky. The vocals are covered in reverb through this track, bringing to mind Black Sabbath tracks. The guitar also takes on a bit of a blues flavor as well, which is a great touch. The closer, “Up the Stairs,” is a fuzz-heavy track about climbing what seems to be an endless stairwell into space and away from the “evil sound” of Earth. That was eight years ago. Where is this stairwell in 2020? I’d like to take a walk.

This was an auspicious debut in 2012. MRS are working on a new full-length album. Let’s hope it comes soon. The world needs heavy stuff like this to shake it awake.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Falle Nioke & Ghost Culture – Youkounkoun EP

I don’t remember where I stumbled onto Falle Nioke and Ghost Culture, but I’m glad I did. Their music makes you dance and feel a sort of spiritual warmth come over you when you hear it, and their Youkounkoun EP, is four tracks of musical magic.

Nioke hails from Guinea Conakry in West Africa and plays percussion while singing in six different languages while most of us can barely manage one. Ghost Culture is a producer / DJ who blends house, electro, and dub. The two of them are a powerful combination.

Opening track “Barké” (“Blessing”) is about doing good for others and receiving blessings from such work. Good grief, don’t we all need encouragement to do that in 2020? I’m not sure which bumps more on it, Nioke’s voice or Ghost Culture’s electro-bass and beats. “Fufafou” is an instant house hit with Nioke moving around and with GC’s beats like Muhammad Ali’s butterfly float and bee sting.

“Loneliness” mixes Nioke’s percussion and GC’s beats so well that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. “Mounemouma” shuffles, curls, and bumps along for over three minutes of body-moving bliss.

It’s all upbeat, and somehow great for dancing or chilling at the same time. You could drop this EP into a workout playlist, a lounge DJ set, a world beat mix tape, or a wedding reception and it would work in all of them.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: DJ Zinc – Crack House E.P. (2018)

It seems wrong to refer to London-based DJ / producer DJ Zinc‘s 2018 release, Crack House E.P., as an EP when it’s ten tracks in length. He’s the DJ, however, so who am I to argue with him? It’s ten tracks of bouncing house, jungle, and drum and bass that’s great for any house party or club – even if they are just in your backyard or apartment and consist of no one but you and your pets.

“Blunt Edge” gets the party started with its killer electro-beats and even wickeder synth-bass. “Pimp My Ride” adds Afro-beat dance rhythms and you’re already starting to sweat on the dance floor. “Jekyll and Hyde” is classic strut-your-stuff house with a bass groove that gets stuck in your head all night. “Number 1 Girls” is a straight-up dancehall track featuring vocals from Benga and Sweetie Irie.

“Watch Dis” blends that dancehall vibe into a wild jungle track that will have you jumping around your living room. “Nu Sound” continues the dancehall-laced beats and drops a sick bass line on you that sounds like DJ Zinc has transformed into some sort of rattlesnake working the decks with his tail.

“Horrible” isn’t horrible. It blends retro-rave sounds with vintage video game blasts and beats chopped up by a master chef. “Because” is aptly named as Zinc loops a woman saying just that throughout the track as synths and bass swirl around her voice and then drop out into a killer cut for any dark club any night of the week. Why? Because.

“No one can complete with our killa sound,” No_Lay sings on “Killa Sound.” It’s hard to argue with her, because she and Zinc make a killer team on this hot dancehall track. The closer, “128 Trek,” is one of Zinc’s biggest hits and the first song I ever heard by him. It made me immediately want to track down more of his work, and will do the same to you. The way Zinc drops and loops beats throughout it is immediately ear-catching. You’ll want it on every workout playlist you have.

Actually, you could just make all of Crack House E.P. a workout playlist. You can’t go wrong there. It works as a house project, cooking, or hot sex playlist as well. Get it while it’s (still, two years later) hot.

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Rituals of Mine – Hype Nostalgia

Terra Lopez, AKA Rituals of Mine, is, if nothing else, a trooper. Her newest album, Hype Nostalgia, began (at least emotionally and conceptually) a couple years ago when she was processing the highs and lows of a three-year period of depression resulting from her father committing suicide as she was starting a world tour and a friend dying in the same week Lopez signed to a major label. Highs and lows. She began therapy in 2018, just in time for her bandmate to leave ROM, but she pressed on with the record, using it as not only her own audio medication, but also in hopes of helping others dealing with similar highs and lows.

Opening track “Tether” opens with the haunting lyrics, “You used to love, you used to laugh at my mistakes.” as Lopez loops choppy beats, bullfrog bass, and just the right amount of echo on her vocals to bounce her lyrics around in your head and cause you to think, “Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Come Around Me” was the first single from the album, and it’s an out-and-proud track about being an openly gay woman of color in a male-dominated industry. She doesn’t want “none of this fake shit” and tells guys in the music biz that all she needs from them is to get “back to the basics” of just being a compassionate / cool human being. “Exceptions” has Lopez singing about her former bandmate’s departure. “You’re not the only one who has these thoughts,” she sings over sultry slow jam beats and synths.

“Heights” has Lopez putting down vocals that are almost raps, and those trip hop beats behind her are top-notch. Speaking of trip hop, “Trauma” is so deep, trippy, and smoky that Tricky is probably kicking himself for not writing it. The follow-up, “Free Throw,” has Lopez telling us “I stay in my lane,” meaning she’s no longer interested in being involved in other peoples’ circuses. “Reflex” is downright sexy as Lopez sings, “All I want is you.” to a special lady somewhere.

“My family history is only a mystery,” Lopez sings on “65th St” – a song that appears to reference her parents and her deceased friend. “All I ever wondered is if you are the source of my emptiness,” she sings on the deeply introspective (but no less beat-heavy) track. I’m not sure if she’s singing to a family member, a former lover, a friend, or herself in a mirror. It works anyway you slice it. Lopez laments her lover being miles away and “fucking with my mind” as she wonders, “Who you thinking of?” on “Omen.” Her electronic beats and bedroom bass are so good by this point in the record that the feel effortless.

“222” is spacey bliss that floats into “Hope U Feel” with Lopez singing, “I’m exhausted…” and “What am I supposed to do without love?” Yet, the song has an uplifting undertone that leaves you feeling like she (and all of us) can move forward if we allow ourselves to do it. The album ends with the short and lovely “The Last Wave.” Lopez puts down simple piano chords as she sings, “I tell myself I’ll find a way out of this.” and how she tried to break through her father’s depression but was unsuccessful. “I can never breach the divide, but I tried, and I still think of you sometimes.”

That’s all most of us can do at times, but that’s okay. Lopez has learned to move forward, as all life must, can, and will do. She encourages us to do the same.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]