I’m late to Elephant Stone‘s last album, Back into the Dream, but they’re certainly not late to their always sharp psychedelic grooves and uplifting lyrics on it.
Robbie MacArthur‘s guitar work on opening track “Lost in a Dream” is outstanding, reaching shining heights above sparkling clouds at some points as even shinier synths bounce like sunlight off a warm lake. “The Spark” features more great guitar work, and “Going Underground” has hints of the band’s love of The Rolling Stones (check out that drum beat by Miles Dupire-Gagnon), with Jason Kent‘s Hammond organ taking a full step forward on the track.
“History Repeating” is almost a shoegaze track with those background guitars and Rishi Dhir‘s smooth bass line throughout it, and “bae” is a shoegaze track with its distorted vocals and enough layers of reverb to make a birthday cake for Roky Erickson. If that track doesn’t take you out of your body, then “Godstar” will as Dhir’s sitar and Shawn Mativetsky‘s tabla pretty much levitate your speakers off the floor, desk, or car doors.
“The Imajinary, Nameless Everybody in the World” is the kind of song that only Elephant Stone can seem to pull off – psychedelic, spiritual, lovely, rocking, and multi-layered without coming off as noodling or tying to force some kind of sound or reaction. It starts off almost meditative and then floats into cosmic jam territory. It’s the rightful centerpiece of the album and is over seven minutes of psych-bliss (and check out that Adam Kinner sax solo!).
“Pilgrimage” is another lovely one, with the band’s synths, piano, and saxophone putting down perfect sounds for a late night trip that’s taking you to a sunrise you’ve wanted to see for quite some time. “On Our Own” has the band embracing their admitted love of The Beatles, and album closes with the soft, short, subtle “Another Year Gone” as Dhir reminisces about past prophets, past choices, past loves, and future joys and mysteries to come.
Elephant Stone have another gem in their catalog with Back into the Dream. It’s both another fun record for us long-time fans and a good entry point if you’re new to them. Sit back and enjoy it.
It’s odd that I haven’t seen a full concert in almost five months, so opening my 2025 concert season with one of my rock heroes seemed appropriate. The Bob Mould Band was playing an easy drive from my house, so seeing them for the third time, and in a small venue, was an easy decision.
First up were Winged Wheel, who described themselves as being “from multiple cities” and thus rarely getting opportunities to play and tour together. They played an interesting brand of psychedelia that mixed synthwave with trippy guitars, a violin, and even lap steel guitar.
Winged Wheel
They had a great sunset to provide a light show, and I thought, “They could play Levitation.” Their sound is unique and they all look like someone you know.
After about a twenty-minute gear switch, The Bob Mould band came out and got straight to business. It was the last show of their current tour, and they emptied the gas tank on the Bell’s outdoor stage.
They tore through the first group of tracks so fast that you could barely breathe. The crowd, mostly aging hipsters like yours truly, seemed a bit low key. The trio of Mr. Mould, Jason Narducy (bass), and Jon Wurster (drums) were roaring and few people were dancing at first. I think some were just overwhelmed by the tidal wave of sound coming at them. There were a couple songs when it felt like a mosh pit could, and should, have broken out. Three guys tried to start one for a moment, but one of the trio soon stopped it and calmed his pals down before it could form.
The Bob Mould Band was undeterred by this, thank heavens, and ripped through a lot of good stuff from their catalogue, both new (from their Here We Go Crazy album) and even a short set of tracks from 2020. Wurster was dropping some killer fills the whole night, and Narducy’s bass grooves were locked in the whole set.
Mould, go figure, shredded the entire evening with both his guitar and his voice. It’s wild to see and hear him create that much sound.
A highlight for me was them playing the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show near the end of the night. If you’re a fan of Hüsker Dü, then you know that cover was a staple of their early shows so it was a blast to hear that gem brought out to shine.
It’s great that these guys are still crushing it and that Mould is still putting out great music and showing youngsters how it’s done.
Keep your mind open.
Thanks to the chap who let me snap a photo of this set list he scored.
[Thanks to Jim and Mia at Big Hassle for the press pass!]
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce their 27th album Phantom Island, out June 13th, and share its lead single “Deadstick.” If you’re worried that, 15 years and 26 albums into their epic quest, polymorphous psychedelic voyagers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard might be running out of new frontiers to traverse, then let their latest opus set your mind to rest. The band’s second release on their own (p)doom records label, Phantom Island sees our intrepid heroes add a new dimension to their ever-evolving songcraft, embracing the symphonic and embroidering their tangles of lysergic riff and melody with strings and horns and woodwind.
The roots of the album can be traced back to the group’s legendary show at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2023. Gizz met some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic backstage who urged them to take part in an annual series where the orchestra plays alongside rock and pop acts. Fast-forward to 2024, and the Gizz are hunkered down in their clubhouse, plugged into tiny practice amps and choogling to their hearts’ content. The results of these sessions yield that year’s Aria-nominated Flight b741. But these sessions yielded ten further songs that didn’t quite fit the Flight b741 vibe, and which, Mackenzie says, “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
Quickly, the group’s collective mind leapt to the LA Philharmonic. “The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie says. He reached out to friend, British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “We come from such different worlds – he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me. Lead single “Deadstick” puts Kelly’s elaborate orchestrations on display, raising the graceful and complex song to the sublime, transforming it into a giddy jazz-rock riot.
On the song’s accompanying video, directorGuy Tyzack says: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about. Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
If Flight b741 was an album of rambunctious adventure stories, Phantom Island picks up that thread, spinning its tales of quests and piracy out into the stars. But it’s a more interior album than its predecessor, more melancholy – more “introverted”, Mackenzie says. Sure, these are tales of high adventure in galaxies far, far away, but the focus is less on the action, and more on the interior lives of those adventurers, reflecting the kind of insight Gizz have gleaned from 15 years of travelling the world and leaving their homes behind to take their music to the people. There’s a wiser, more mature, more sensitive Gizz at play here, questioning their place within the universe, their responsibilities, the ties that bind. “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out,” admits Mackenzie, “but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
King Gizzard will embark on their 2025 Phantom Island orchestral tour this July. Featuring a different accompanying 29-piece orchestra in each city – and ably led by conductor & music director Sarah Hicks – the tour will see the group perform with some of the country’s most renowned ensembles, before concluding with Field of Vision, the band’s own 3-day residency camping event at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, CO. This represents the band’s only U.S. tour of 2025, so don’t miss out on your fix for a full calendar year. A full list of dates are below with tickets available here.
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES (New dates in bold) Sun. May 18 – Tue. May 20 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu dos Recreios * Fri. May 23 – Sun. May 25 – Barcelona, ES @ Poble Espanyol * Thu. May 29 – Sat. May 31 – Vilnius, LT @ Lukiškės Prison 2.0 ^ Wed. June 4 – Fri. June 6 – Athens, GR @ Lycabettus Theatre City of Athens # Sun. June 8 – Tue. June 10 – Plovdiv, BG @ Ancient Theatre ^
Fri. June 13 – Sun. June 15 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Mon. July 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion At The Mann (w/ Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) $ Wed. July 30 – New Haven, CT @ Westville Music Bowl (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Fri. August 1 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $ Sat. August 2 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (Rock ‘n Roll Show) $ Mon. August 4 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion (w/ National Symphony Orchestra) $ Wed. August 6 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival (w/ Chicago Philharmonic) $ Fri. August 8 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Ford Amphitheater (w/ Colorado Symphony) $ Sun. August 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl (w/ Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) $ Mon. August 11 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (w/ San Diego Symphony Orchestra) $
Fri. August 15 – Sun. August 17 – Buena Vista, CO @ FIELD OF VISION at Meadow Creek %
Fri. October 31 – Manchester, UK @ Aviva Studios (Rave Set) Sat. November 1 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Sun. November 2 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set) Tue. November 4 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall (w/ Covent Garden Sinfonia) Wed. November 5 – Paris, FR @ La Seine Musicale (w/ L’Orchestre Lamoureux) Thu. November 6 – Tilburg, NL @ 013 (Rave Set) Fri. November 7 – Den Bosch, NL @ MAINSTAGE ( w/ Sinfonia Rotterdam) Sun. November 9 – Gdansk, PL @ Inside Seaside Festival (w/ The Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra) Mon. November 10 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle (Rave Set) Tue. November 11 – Prague, CZ @ SaSaZu (Rave Set) Wed. November 12 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer (Rave Set) Fri. November 14 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen (Rave Set) Sat. November 15 – Gothenburg, SE @ Gothenburg Film Studios (Rave Set)
* w/ Etran De L’Aïr ^ w/ King Stingray # w/ King Stingray, DJ Crenshaw $ w/ DJ Crenshaw % w/ Babe Rainbow, Gaye Su Akyol, King Stingray, Mannequin Pussy, Memo PST, Pearl Charles, The Mystery Lights, The Songs For Kids Band!, White Fence, DJ Crenshaw
Paddang is a psychedelic rock trio formed in Toulouse (France) in 2020. With Osees and King Crimson all over the radio and a band name inspired by a surf spot in Indonesia, Paddang are speeding through a cosmic epic that sounds like a Herbert prophecy. Far from hiding behind a wall of fuzz or a mountain of reverb, the three voices dictate the tone and invoke an urgent need to do something in a world on the brink of chaos. Their debut album ‘Chasing Ghosts’ was released in March 2023, backed up by a fifty-date tour in France (including festivals such as Ecaussystème, Musicalarue, Montauban en scènes, Guitare en Scène, V&B Fest and support slots with bands such as MADAM, Pogo Car Crash Control, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, and It It Anita).
Their second album will be released on June 6th 2025 on LE CÈPE RECORDS & STOLEN BODY RECORDS. After a first single, ‘‘PRESSURE’‘ released in April, the band will reveal on Friday a second track from the album, “PREDATOR” : youtube.com/watch?v=vudrz5XHbK8
Fierce and visceral, “Predator” explores the fragile boundary between human nature and primal instinct. It’s a raw track about survival, fear, and the predator that lies dormant within each of us. With powerful vocals and a relentless rhythm, it delivers an urgent message—where rock becomes a weapon against apathy. “Predator” is more than just a song; it’s a cry against the loss of our humanity. Shot like the final episode of a thrilling B-movie, the “Predator” music video picks up where Pressure left off. Deep within the belly of a cave, the Lizard Corp industrialists have gone too far, recklessly exploiting Draconite, a stone of mystical energy. Mutated into reptilian creatures, they launch a savage hunt for Moros through the scorched landscapes of a dying planet. Rescued at the last moment by a mysterious guardian inspired by Quetzalcoatl, Moros sets off for Agartha—a legendary city where she hopes to find a glimpse of peace.
The press release I got for Fugue State‘s new album, In the Lurch, described it as sounding like it’s “broadcast through a warped transistor radio from another dimension.” That’s a good way to put it. It’s a wild album that blends punk, jazz, garage rock, and other things I’m still trying to define…but should I bother?
After all, vocalist and guitarist Shane Bruno has said that the lead track (and single), “Moot Point,” is “not meant to be taken entirely seriously” — even though it’s a song about questioning your place in the universe. Perhaps that is the moot point: We’re all floating on a speck of dust in infinite space, so why are we so worried about everything?
Gage O’Brien‘s opening bass on the title track is like the sound of a muscle car engine roaring to life. The rest of the track is that same car tearing through a junkyard wall. “The Pipeline” combines surf and psych along with some weirdo rock and makes a somewhat spooky brew. “Mundane Man” is bonkers, as Bruno shreds his guitar and rolls his eyes at a dude who can’t stop talking about himself.
Drummer Jonathan Hanson goes nuts on the punky-funky “I’ll Keep It in Mind,” making you want to sign him up for your next punk band. “Facts” sounds like Osees making a weird surf album. “Joie de Vivre” is wonderfully warped. Bruno’s guitar sounds like he’s running it through at least three pedals and maybe even an old sewing machine.
“Connecticut Girls” reminds me of Dead Kennedys with its distorted vocals about picking up girls and surf-influenced garage punk sound. “I Don’t Wanna Be Here” could be the theme of the day, week, year, decade, country, and / or planet. O’Brien’s synths (and the horns!) on the closer, “Abscess,” are a neat touch, taking the song back and forth from Hasil Adkins weirdness to Julian Cope-level strangeness.
This is one of the wildest records I’ve heard all year so far. I need to see these guys live. It must be bonkers.
Keep your mind open.
[I’ll be left in the lurch if you don’t subscribe.]
Recorded in 2022 while they had some extra days in Los Angeles after the end of a U.S. west coast tour, Holy Wave got together with Osees‘ Tomas Dolas and knocked out a few singles…and then a couple more when they realized they had the makings of a groovy EP on their hands. That became the Studio 22 Singles and B-Sides album.
The opening drum fill by Julian Ruiz on “chaparral” immediately drops you into lovely headspace, and Kyle Hager‘s slightly distant vocals and sunlight-breaking-through-the-clouds synths guide you along a river made of melted ice cream. “time crisis too” is even brighter and lusher, with Hager’s synths sounding like a backing choir and Joey Cook‘s acoustic guitar work feeling like a happy cat prancing around your house as the sun rises.
The acoustic guitars return for “cowprint” — a song about being fascinated by a potential lover and watching them from afar. The song transforms by the second half into a synth and electric piano-driven bit of mellow psych-rock. Speaking of mellow, the delightful “father’s prayer” will be your new favorite 1970s toe-tapper…and it was made in 2022!
“bog song” floats along like cat tail fluff over a bog on a bright day. Cook’s guitar solo on it is never forceful, but centers the whole track, and Ryan Fuson‘s piano takes you by the hand and along all the safe places to walk in the bog. Fuson is subtly and cleverly all over the background of the record, actually, adding details (with multiple instruments) that would cause the songs to sound odd if they were absent.
I love that the albums ends (after the brief, slightly goofy “away here”) with an almost meditative instrumental — “string performer.” It’s just guitars, synths, piano, quiet bass, and little, if any, percussion. It’s lovely.
The whole record is. They captured a neat moment when recording this, and thanks to them for sharing it with us.
In case you weren’t aware, Seattle’s KEXP is one of the best radio stations out there for music lovers. Part of the reason is that they present so many great live performances from so many artists in different genres. They also host, and broadcast, full live concerts. Some of them are even released for us to consume afterwards, like the newest Live at KEXPrecord from psychedelic rippers Frankie and The Witch Fingers.
FATW go back to their (near) beginning by opening with the title track from their Brain Telephone album. Nikki Pickle‘s bass is a snarling beast, and it’s easy to lose track of whose guitar sounds like it’s already falling apart – Dylan Sizemore‘s or Josh Menashe‘s. Just when you think the whole song and set is going to be wild noise, they drop into their funk grooves that they do so well. “Futurephobic” starts and stops on a dime, leaving you a bit bewildered by the end.
“Syster System” struts around the stage like an unearthed Thin Lizzy track stretching its muscles and staking a claim on rock and roll. “Cops & Robbers” is almost a psychobilly track with the wild lyrics about bank robbery and Nick Aguilar‘s punk drumming, and then it dissolves / oozes into the slime-punky “Sidewalk.” “Weird Dog” snaps back and forth between garage rock funk and crunchy punk kerplunk that your neck might snap.
Jon Modaff is a welcome addition to the FATWF lineup on synths, and his work on “i-Candy” almost brings the band into spooky rock / haunted house terror music. In other words, more cool stuff the band pulls off with ease. The longest cut, “Empire,” has become a fan favorite of their live shows as it lets each band member shine at different times and always belts you hard in the chest.
The concert, and album, ends with “Bonehead” – a raucous rocker made for pogo-dancing and kicking down doors and, well, boneheads…and good grief, Menashe’s solo is manic. The whole song, and (again) the album, practically has you sweating just from hearing it. It, like seeing them in the flesh, will leave you invigorated.
You might think Acid Rooster‘s Hall of Mirrors album was an EP by looking at the track listing, as it’s only four songs, but the shortest one is nearly six minutes in length.
Those four songs are are excellent cosmic rock tracks perfect for either tripping out inside the album’s namesake at your local county fair or surfing around the universe as a herald of Galactus. “Automat” (the five-minute-fifty-second song) has Joe Satriani-like riffs from Sebastian Väth and enough psychedelic synths from Maximilian Leicht to melt your mind and then reform it into something capable of clairvoyance. “Chandelier Arp” first sounds like the pulse and happy sighs of an android receiving a massage in zero gravity. Then, Steffen Schmidt comes in on drums and the android starts some form of astral projection or perhaps a digital upload to some giant connected mind. Leicht’s saxophone work on this put you in orbit about an emerging white sun.
“Confidence of Ignorance” brings in Middle Eastern desert rock flavor, which is fine by me. The sound takes on a heavier tone and reminds you of scantily clad, scimitar-wielding maidens emerging from the desert to either cut you down, cast spells on you, or both. “When Clouds Part” beautifully ends Side B with a gentle float back down to Earth, nicely landing us on a warm, green cliff overlooking the ocean.
Did I mention it’s an instrumental album? It’s a trip-tastic bit of space rock that you’ll want for times you need to float away for a bit.
THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE announce a new single, ‘Makes Me Great / Out Of Body’, on red transparent 10” vinyl, released April 25th via Anton Newcombe’s record label A Recordings. Pre-save here. Following a hugely successful UK and Europe tour earlier this year, the band will return to North America this fall for an extensive run of live shows, including two dates with special guests, Cast, making their first US appearance in nearly 30 years. Tickets on sale now.
It is over 30 years since Anton Newcombe – frontman, songwriter, composer, studio owner, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer, father, force of nature – and his band The Brian Jonestown Massacre released their first single She Made Me / Evergreen. Released in 1992, as the British music press descended on the US to anoint the next US guitar band as flavour of the month and major labels were on the hunt for the compliant hopefuls to be their latest quick fix, Anton Newcombe had an idea: say no. As leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Newcombe had already established himself as a visionary songwriter, a man to whom making music wasn’t a lifestyle choice or a hipster haircut but the very fabric of existence itself, and he had observed in silent horror as his peers meekly acquiesced to everything – yes to contracts, yes to management, yes to suggestions, yes to this, yes to that, yes, yes, yes. But he was different. Anton Newcombe was going to say no to everything. “I just knew I would be more successful in a certain way by saying no, just being contrary because I figured that if people liked me they were gonna like me anyway,” he says. “Or dislike me. It doesn’t matter.”
Much of this was documented on the controversial documentary ‘Dig!’, which is still hailed as one of the best rock documentaries ever made, and celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year with the remastered, expanded version “Dig! XX.”
Brian Jonestown Massacre’s shoegazing-tinged debut album Methodrone was released in 1995 and since then numerous band members have joined Newcombe on his sonic escapades, but he has remained the sole constant, the creative mastermind at the centre of one of music’s most fascinating bands. There have been a further 20 albums under the Brian Jonestown Massacre moniker since then, each embarking on their own mind-expanding adventure and exploring the outer realms of rock’n’roll; psychedelic rock, country-blues, snarling rock’n’roll, blissed-out noise-pop and more.
Along the way, Newcombe has established himself as a once-in-a-lifetime talent who saw the direction in which mainstream indie-rock was heading and opted to take the long way round. He’s emerged as a revolutionary force in modern music, an underground hero. There was no other way, this was how it had to be. “My only option with everything in life has always been that you just jump into the fire,” he declared. “It doesn’t matter what it is.”
It’s with that spirit that he’s hopped around the globe, from the West Coast to New York, from Manhattan to Iceland, and then to Berlin, where he’s lived for 15 years and has two flats, one to live in and one that’s been converted into his studio.
After a hugely prolific 2010s that saw the release of eight long-players and one mini-album, Newcombe had been going through a period of writer’s block when one day he picked up his 12-string guitar and The Real (the opening track on previous album Fire Doesn’t Grow on Trees) came out of him. Like the kraken, it was as if he’d summoned it. “All of a sudden, I just heard something,” he says. “And then it just didn’t stop. We tracked a whole song every single day for 70 days in a row.” By the end of it they had 2 albums ready to go. Joining Newcombe in the studio for The Future Is Your Past were Hakon Adalsteinsson (guitar) and Uri Rennert (drums).
Brian Jonestown Massacre released their 20th full-length studio album The Future Is Your Past, in February 2023 on Anton’s record label, A Recordings. In 2022 / 2023, they completed a massive world tour that saw them play 34 dates in North America, 25 dates across Europe and 16 dates in the UK. Towards the end of 2024, they released ‘Don’t Look At Me’ ft. Aimee Nash. It is a delicious slice of hypnotic shoegaze with Nash lyrically casting a spell with the mantra “Do No Harm.”
There is no such thing as a defining statement in Anton Newcombe’s world anymore, just more chapters that contribute to the tale. “Nobody can stop me, I’m not asking somebody, I’m not making the rounds at Warners, saying ‘please put out my record!’. It’s just for me,” he says. He hopes he can be an inspiration to others. “I would love to see more groups, people playing music in the UK and everywhere else because I really enjoy it. That’s the only reason I need. It’s the only reason to do stuff.” That hits to the core of what makes Anton Newcombe and Brian Jonestown Massacre tick. He’ll keep jumping in that fire. That’s how he rolls. Savor it.
LIVE SHOWS:
Sept. 3 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC Sept. 4 – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA Sept. 5 – Basement East – Nashville, TN Sept. 6 – Orange Peel – Asheville, NC Sept. 8 – 9:30 Club – Washington, D.C. Sept. 9 – Webster Hall – New York, NY – with special guests, Cast Sept. 10 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA – with special guests, Cast Sept. 12 – The Sinclair – Cambridge, MA Sept. 13 – Beanfield Theatre – Montreal, QC Sept. 14 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto, ON Sept. 16 – Globe Iron – Cleveland, OH Sept. 17 – Majestic Theatre – Detroit, MI Sept. 18 – Mercury Ballroom – Louisville, KY Sept. 19 – Hi-Fi Annex – Indianapolis, IN Sept. 20 – Majestic Theatre – Madison, WI Sept. 22 – Metro – Chicago, IL Sept. 23 – Slowdown – Omaha, NE Sept. 24 – recordBar – Kansas City, MO Sept. 26 – Studio at The Factory – Dallas, TX Sept. 28 – White Oak Music Hall – Houston, TX Oct. 31 – Music Box – San Diego, CA Nov. 1 – Pappy and Harriet’s – Pioneertown, CA
Nov. 2 – Observatory OC – Santa Ana, CA Nov. 4 – SLO Brew – San Luis Obispo, CA Nov. 6 – Swan Dive – Las Vegas, NV Nov. 7 – The Van Buren – Phoenix, AZ Nov. 8 – Tumbleroot – Santa Fe, NM Nov. 10 – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO Nov. 11 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO Nov. 13 – Metro Music Hall – Salt Lake City, UT Nov. 14 – Shrine Social Club – Boise, ID Nov. 15 – The Showbox – Seattle, WA Nov. 16 – The Pearl – Vancouver, B.C Nov. 18 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR Nov. 20 – Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA Nov. 21 – Rio Theatre – Santa Cruz, CA Nov. 22 – Teragram Ballroom – Los Angeles, CA Nov. 23 – Teragram Ballroom – Los Angeles, CA
Blackwater Holylight excel at writing, singing, and playing haunting songs that take doom rock into spectral places. Now, with their new EP If You Only Knew, the band take their doom rock into the shoegaze realm and the results are excellent.
Sarah McKenna‘s rainfall-like electric piano opens the EP on “Wandering Lost.” It matches the sorrowful guitar from Mikayla Mayhew as lead singer / bassist Sunny Faris reminds us that we all suffer at some point, and we can sometimes find solace in that. The song kicks into grand metal riffs in the second half, with drummer Eliese Dorsay putting down beats that Nordic metal bands would love.
“Torn Reckless” is a gorgeous shoegaze track that caught me by surprise. Faris sings about standing on the precipice of a relationship and not sure if plunging off it or backing away is the right decision. Mayhew’s guitar sounds like its being pumped through a dozen half-blown amplifiers.
“Fate Is Forward” is pure 1990s (good) alt-rock with its bursting guitars and quiet-loud-quiet verses and chorus. It’s almost a forgotten Failure track, and it’s impossible to choose who shines the most on it, but why should you bother? Just let it wash over you like a rolling thunderstorm.
Finally, I did not have “Blackwater Holylight covers Radiohead.” on my 2025 bingo card, but they’ve done it with a beautiful version of “All I Need.” They keep the buzzing synths and add more guitar fuzz. Faris’ version of Thom Yorke‘s vocals make the song open its heart a bit more and, yes, make it sexier.
This is one of Blackwater Holylight’s best records, and a great sign of good things to come as they continue to explore and expand their sound.
Keep your mind open.
[If you only knew how much I’d like you to subscribe.]
