March 2021 – Page 2 – 7th Level Music

Rewind Review: MF DOOM – MM…FOOD (2004)

More than just a collection of rap tunes about food, MF DOOM‘s MM…FOOD is a masterclass in hip hop, songwriting, beat mixing, and villainy.

The opening track alone, “Beef Rap,” uses samples to tell us the album will be comfort for our bodies and minds. It’s true. DOOM tells us it’s about the beats, not him, but his lyrics are so smooth and stunning that you can’t ignore him. You want to analyze everything he says because it’s coming out with references to cartoons, strippers, lesser MCs, kung fu, and, of course, food. The beat boxing on “Hoe Cakes” is outstanding, and DOOM tells tales of picking up chicks and then cutting out like D.B. Cooper.

Count Bass D. joins DOOM on “Potholderz,” which is pretty much about what you think it is as the duo name check O.J. Simpson and talk about being so high they forget they didn’t light the joint they’ve been trying to smoke. “One Beer” stumbles around with drunken beats but DOOM’s vocals are as deft as a circus acrobat’s. “Deep Fried Frenz” tackles sycophants, backstabbers, and gold-diggers while DOOM looks for true friends. “Jealousy the number one killer among black folk,” he warns.

“Poo-Putt Platter” is chock-full of weird cartoon samples rearranged into a weird mix that melts into the equally strange (and delightful) “Fillet-O-Rapper” and “Gumbo” – both of which have so many samples you can’t keep track of them all. One of the most clever uses is DOOM rearranging samples from cooking show hosts talking about wraps.

“Fig Leaf Bi-Carbonate” emerges from these three tracks like a massive ray gun rising out of a supervillain’s volcano hideout. The sample from a Fantastic Four cartoon telling the origin story of Dr. Doom is uncannily close to DOOM’s story, which, of course, is the reason he chose it. “Kon Karne” combines jazz beats with video game sounds and DOOM mentioning Sally Struthers and the Tower of Pisa in the same breath.

The groove on “Guinnesses” is downright slick, almost making you slide across your kitchen floor if you hear it while doing the dishes or, better yet, making dinner. Angelika and 4Ize add some killer lyrics (Angelika on the verses, 4Ize on the choruses) about how some relationships are like battles that often are best not chosen. “Kon Queso” has a cool bass lick running through it as synth stabs bounce behind DOOM’s nimble wordplay, which is available “to freaks and to pencil-necked geeks.”

Mr. Fantastic joins DOOM on “Rapp Snitch Knishes” – another song about fake friends (who in this case spread gossip or worse). “Vomitspit” cuts and loops a cool lounge track while DOOM reminisces about how he used to lose his game when a woman called him “Daddy” and how being a masked villain isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Kookies” might have the best bass line on the album, because it’s like a deadly sidekick to DOOM’s verbal gymnastics. You’ll lose track of how many references DOOM makes to cookies and uses them to refer to other things. It’s this kind of wordplay that made DOOM your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper.

MF DOOM left us far too soon, but at least he left masterpieces like this for us to obsess over for years to come. His master plan was fulfilled. He became a world ruler and then for mystic pursuits.

Keep your mind open.

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Lily Konigsberg shares “Owe Me” from her album due May 21st.

Lily Konigsberg: singer, instrumentalist, lifelong songwriter. Since her early childhood, the Brooklyn-born-and-based artist has occupied her time with music. “Basically I was born and immediately started wanting to be a rock star,” Konigsberg told Pitchfork in July of last year (she was a 2020 Pitchfork Rising Artist). By the time she won a five-borough battle-of-the-bands contest as a teenager Konigsberg had already been performing solo sets in cafes around her native Park Slope, and in 2013 she would link with fellow Bard classmates Nina Ryser and Ani Ivry-Block to form the egalitarian art-punk outfit Palberta, a beloved DIY scene fixturewho have recently come to wider attention on the back of their critically-acclaimed 2021 album Palberta5000.

Since the early days of Palberta Konigsberg has been posting solo material on her personal Bandcamp page. Between various other collaborations and musical projects she has released three official EPs under her own name beginning with 2017’s Good Time Now, a milestone split release with Andrea Schiavelli, 2018’s 4 Picture Tear, and 2020’s It’s Just Like All the Clouds, her first EP on long-time Palberta home Wharf Cat Records, and a release that began to bring broader attention to Konigsberg’s solo work. Today, Konigsberg is announcing a new compilation on Wharf Cat entitled The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, a release that compiles her three EPs alongside unreleased tracks into a remastered (or in some cases mastered for the first time) collection. To announce the release Konigsberg is sharing “Owe Me,” an older track she initially demoed with It’s Just Like All The Clouds producer Paco Cathcart, that features keyboards from Matt Norman (Horn Horse) and final production handled by Nate Amos (This is Lorelei, Water From Your Eyes).

LISTEN: to Lily Konigsberg’s “Owe Me” on YouTube

This compilation is a musical omnibus—the first widely distributed Lily Konigsberg physical release as well as the first vinyl treatment for both Good Time Now and 4 Picture Tear. The collection loosely parallels the melancholic narrative behind the latter, where a mental break triggered Konigsberg’s depersonalized sense of her past self. Of the 4 Picture Tear EP, Konigsberg says, “I would look at this photo-booth picture I took with Matt [Norman] and cry because I thought I was looking at the person I used to be in that picture and that person was gone.” In retrospect, these three EPs feel like distinctive vignettes of Konigsberg’s progression as a songwriter, each version of her past selves tethered by an invisible thread to the present through musical alliances and fervent introspection.

“Owe Me,” a song Konigsberg never felt fit on any of her previous releases, now serves as an opening curtain call. “Thank you all for coming to my show,” Konigsberg says to an invisible audience’s applause. “If you didn’t know, now you certainly know.” It’s a transportive moment that combines Konigsberg’s patient steps into the underground pop limelight with her exceptional ability to connect with a diverse and talented cohort of creatives.

“I wrote ‘Owe Me’ in Petaluma on a trip with my friend Matt Norman,” says Konigsberg. “I knew immediately that it was one of those bangers that was gonna rock people’s worlds, but after Matt added some essential keyboard licks, it disappeared into the abyss of my computer accompanying roughly 500 other songs still stuck there. When concept of The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now came together with my friend Trip Warner, I knew this should be released. With the help of Nate Amos who enhanced the beat, added the descriptive sounds, and basically just made it sound amazing, it was finally complete. For me, the lyrics to this song aren’t as important as how much collaboration and friendship can transform a banger into a BANGER. I love my friends.”

The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now will be released on Wharf Cat Records on May 21st, 2021. It is available for preorder here.

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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.]

Rochelle Jordan’s new album, “Play with the Changes,” is due April 30th, but she wants to get “Next 2 You” right now (if you’re lucky).

Los Angeles-based artist Rochelle Jordan announces her new album, Play With the Changes, out April 30th on TOKiMONSTA’s Young Art Records, and today presents new single/video, “NEXT 2 YOU.” For Jordan, a desire for sonic expansion has long been embedded into her fusion of futuristic and ancestrally soulful R&B. To hear a Rochelle Jordan song is to absorb a blend of sampledelic 90s pop, vintage UK house and garage, 31st century electronic bangers, airy late night ballads, and progressive hip-hop. On Play With the Changes, Jordan showcases not just her own personal evolution, but a path to pushing sound forward. Produced by KLSH, Machinedrum, and Jimmy Edgar, the album presents her as a modern heir in a lineage of powerhouse vocalists with style and imagination: everyone from Whitney Houston to Celine Dion, Aaliyah to Amerie, Kelis to Mariah Carey.

Following singles “GOT EM” and “ALL ALONG,” “NEXT 2 YOU” is an alluring R&B track backed by a 2-step beat and radiant, celestial synths. The accompanying video was directed by Lissyelle Laricchia. “When KLSH first played me this beat, I thought it was so jarring and unconventional that I fell in love with it,” says Jordan. “It really took me back to the days when I obsessed over Deadmau5 and Artful Dodger, but this was a very futuristic sound I hadn’t quite heard before. It’s as strange as it sounds, as it feels, and is as beautiful and unique as I love for my music to be. As far as the lyrics go, the song is about what it says. I’m trying to get next to you.”

Watch Rochelle Jordan’s Video for “NEXT 2 YOU”

Born in London to British-Jamaican parents, Jordan and her family relocated to the eastside of Toronto in the early ‘90s. Her father, a drummer, encouraged her love of art and instilled an appreciation for Northern soul, and Jamaican reggae and dancehall. Bleeding through the walls of her childhood bedroom, the adolescent Jordan soaked in the record collection of her older brother: funky UK house, nocturnal drum and bass, garage, and all the gospel samples contained therein.

Jordan’s first releases ROJO (2011) and Pressure (2012) revealed an effortlessness to her left-field R&B sound, blending sultriness with grit, confidence and a playful experimental streak. After relocating to LA, Jordan’s career swiftly elevated. She toured with Jessie Ware, collaborated with Childish Gambino(Donald Glover) on his 2014 Grammy-nominated album, Because the Internet, and landed a stint doing voice over work for the Adult Swim show, Black Dynamite, where she appeared in a memorable episode featuring Erykah Badu, Chance the Rapper, and Mel B. of the Spice Girls. Jordan’s first complete statement, 2014’s 1021, produced the acclaimed singles “Lowkey” and “Follow Me.” Pitchfork named the latter one of the most essential post-Drake Toronto tracks, calling 1021 “one of the best Canadian contemporary R&B albums of the last five years.”

After a contemplative period marked by spiritual and artistic growth, Jordan returned with a slew of ethereal soul – collaborations with Jimmy Edgar, Machinedrum, Jacques Greene, and J-E-T-S. It all led up to the radiant
breakthrough that is her new album, Play With the Changes.

Defying categorization to create a project full of slinky, dancefloor-packing burners that channel her U.K. roots, Play With the Changes is reminiscent of Jordan’s childhood nights spent listening to her brother’s 2-step hymns from the other side of the wall. These are songs of experience: grappling with depression, homesickness, and struggles with an industry that rarely has room for true originals – especially ones who write all their own music. But they are unmistakably songs of triumph.
Pre-order / Pre-save Play With the Changes

Listen to “NEXT 2 YOU”

Listen to “ALL ALONG”

Watch Visualizer for “GOT EM”

Play with the Changes Tracklist:
1. LOVE U GOOD
2. GOT EM
3. NEXT 2 YOU
4. ALL ALONG
5. BROKEN STEEL FT. Farrah Fawx
6. COUNT IT
7. ALREADY
8. NOTHING LEFT
9. LAY
10. SOMETHING
11. DANCING ELEPHANTS
12. SITUATION

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect 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

Keep your mind open.

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

Rewind Review: King Geedorah – Take Me to Your Leader (2016)

Part of the legend and greatness of the late MF DOOM was that you never knew what he was going to do next. On the 2016 album Take Me to Your Leader, he took on another secret identity – King Geedorah, who himself was MF DOOM taken over by aliens bent on taking over the Earth. It’s a wild concept record filled with DOOM’s stunning rhymes and cool kaiju film samples helping tell / yell the story.

The first words on Take Me to Your Leader are “Follow the light, the light is your guide.” on “Fazer.” DOOM is fully possessed by the Planet X aliens and threatening to spit electricity (which is already does through his jaw-dropping rap skills) and to make “razors out of beer cans.” The loops and beats of “Fastlane” almost sound warped. The X-aliens brag about their control of DOOM and his friends on “Krazy World.”

“The Final Hour” takes a great sample from Hall & Oates‘ “I Can’t Go for That” and slows it down to the point where it’s almost unrecognizable. “Monster Zero” is another name for King Geedorah, and it’s also a great trip-hop tune with many great samples from Japanese monster films. “Next Levels” brings back hip hop rhymes atop an acid jazz beat.

“Geedorah has arrived, you guys can take five,” Geedorah / DOOM says on “No Snakes Alive.” DOOM’S pace moves back and forth from methodical to frenzied on the track. DOOM and Mr. Fantastic team up for a smooth track on “Anti-Matter.” Bonus points to you if you get the joke / reference in that partnership. The title track is a bit of a weird dream with plenty of samples of hysterical laughter and that Hall & Oates sample chopped up and restructured one more time.

“Lockjaw” goes back so fast that you barely have time to breathe, let alone catch all the tricky rhymes in it. “I Wonder,” with guest star Hassan Chop, has a cool, cinematic string section loop throughout it and takes on a philosophical tone as Chop wonders why he got dealt such a bad hand in life. The funky “One Smart Nigger” tackles how white culture loves to co-opt black culture and often not admit to doing it or, worse, claiming it was all their idea to start.

“Render unto Geedorah what is Geedorah’s,” DOOM says at the beginning of the last track, “The Fine Print.” That line takes on even more significance after hearing the track before it. The beats mix funky horns, video game sounds, beatboxing, and electro-drums to strut around like a three-headed dragon from outer space across the city of your choice.

The album ends with someone tells us the future of the planet is at stake, and DOOM is the one to deliver the message. He delivered many throughout his too-brief life. I haven’t mentioned a lot of the amazing wordplay on Take Me to Your Leader because, like any DOOM record, there’s so much that you don’t know where to start.

Keep your mind open.

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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.

Keep your mind open.

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