Album Review: Royal Thunder - Wick

Grabbing the chance to wade into Royal Thunder’s world is always a bit of a pleasure. The Atlantan quartet are right up my alley often warping the softer edges of classic rock and grunge with deft psych touches to create a warm, unctuous sound. New album, Wick, has promised to offer something a little different though so we’ll see in which direction they’ve veered.

It’s a slow, melancholic start with Mlny Parsonz’ strong, part-growled vocal outpourings, saving the weak MOR melodies, rhythmic plodding and cloying, overwrought threads from anonymity. Happily, as the tempo picks up, to coincide with the rollicking force of “The Sinking Chair”, the disparate structures begin to mesh together and throb beautifully. Her vocal even kicks into growl mode and the twisted overdrive in Josh Weaver’s guitar really ram home the band’s intent and passion. It’s a right old rocker all wrapped up in bookends of feedback.

There’s elements of stoner plod, dirty pop and blues boogie in here, but it’s the rich vein of frazzled country that shines through strongest of all. The balletic “Plans” is pure Black Crowes, the over-dramatics and soporific nature of “Push” and “The Well” are tinged with Creedence and Fleetwood Mac, whilst the lilting kick and rattle of “Anchor” is delivered with a sneer, a swagger and a truckful of capricious intensity that only comes from extended Country & Western immersion – I bet they recorded it wearing ten gallon hats.

Ultimately it’s the weaker numbers, such as the loose-limbed “We Slipped” and the wheedling, naval-gazing title-track that leave this coming up short of their best material. Despite the clipped song structures, multi-instrumentalism and new clean lines they are sporting this, by no means, is an album that has strayed too far from the nest but it does come fired up by this strong sense of purpose. It’s interesting to notice that Parsonz found making the album a bit of a struggle. “It was a fight, but to hear it now, to see it finished, is so gratifying. I’m looking at it, going we’re done, it’s over, be free.” For me, the overwhelming sense from reading that quote is one of relief, rather than achievement. Let’s hope that the pieces fall into place a little easier next time.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/04/royal-thunder-wick-spinefarm/

https://www.facebook.com/RoyalThunderMusic

Album Review: Karg - Weltenasche

What Austrian J.J. (the artist formerly known as V. Wahntraum) does is a mouthful, but what the one-man Austrian band calls himself is not. He dabbles in ambient-oriented, post-atmospheric black metal but he simply calls his project KARG.

Weltenasche is his fifth full-length studio album and is the first to be completely performed in the dialect J.J. grew up with and which is spoken around the mountains of his hometown. Being gloomy and emotional, you’ll pick up subtle hints of Alcest and Lantlôs in here.

Take, “Crevasse”. It’s an 11-minute opener that lays bare his tonal calling card. Part-ambient, part-aggressive, the construction is detailed and invites introspection. It’s steady opening and resplendent chiming background is quickly obliterated by a viciously shrieked vocal that repeatedly drowns the softly-spoken underscore whilst the introduction of massively-distorted guitar scrawl kicks it fully into submission.

The rhythm bucks and shakes as the drum patterns shift constantly making it tough to grab a firm grip on proceedings. The juxtaposition of rough and smooth creates an antagonistic power play but the overall sense of drama is unerring. Melancholia envelops all – easy-listening this is not.

By the end of third track, “Le Couloir De Ombres”, we are already well over 30 minutes into this beast with the promise of at least another 45 minutes to go and already the abrupt key changes and panicky, affected nature of the song-writing is causing heart-palpitations. Grinding on as I must I find the shackles tightening and crave freedom. It becomes beyond oppressive, I start to writhe, burn, itch and fester. Not due to the extreme nature of the music, but the incessant, imposing structures that obliterate one another. It makes no sense.

It’s a tough one – these could all be special places to the right ear, but to mine the levels of perseverance required to fully engage the bronco requires me to strip my psyche to the bone. Each vast piece takes us careering into uncharted territory. Through NWOBHM, 80s kitsch, recordings of blazing rows and into incendiary spots of classical music.

Ultimately it is the dull, recycling chord structures that kill it. This is J.J.’s own all-consuming psychosis, not ours. It’s just too easy an album to walk away from. Without rules, there is only chaos and this is what miserably deliberate, self-absorbed chaos sounds like.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2017/01/karg-weltenasche-art-of-propaganda/

https://www.facebook.com/kargband
https://karg.bandcamp.com

Album Review: Queen Elephantine - Kala

With a production value as rough as a hangover, Queen Elephantine cast a little one-take stardust over their music. It’s lo-fi and dissolute. Hearing them recorded can’t be far away from the aural experience of seeing them live. Feedback and fuzz are their friends. Farting sub-bass is a constant bedfellow and hissing snare is their heartbeat.

In opener, “Quartered” they thrust together a visceral, spiked form of electro-punk and staple it to the slow drift of melancholic doom. Think of a heavy-lidded, tripping version of Bleach-era Nirvana and you won’t be far off. The two-chord attack of “Quartz” (and twin “Deep Blue”) takes us a step further by introducing yawning vocal stabs with spasmodic bursts of guitar. The mid-track drop into a maudlin build lets the bass rumble play on alone to really dig out a groove.

Elsewhere, the tribal toms of “Onyx” lay the rhythm for a slow-burning psychedelic jam: sliding, trundling, chaotically pulsing and phasing with discordance, chaotic input and abstract warmth. A kind of loose-seated Weedeater with added feedback. To finish, the marvellously-titled “Throne Of The Void In The Hundred Petal Lotus” is a sedate, amorphous sludge oozing its way down a blood-red river clogged with writhing, pain-racked bodies and in through the gates of Hell.

What you’ll find is so stripped, so devoid of complexity, so unloveable and so unrefined that it offers little beyond that initial impact of rediscovering the thrill of the avant-garde; the early flush of youth where quality mattered little. If lo-fi doom is your bag, you’ll get a kick from this but you won’t cherish it for long.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/11/queen-elephantine-kala-transcending-obscurity/

https://queenelephantine.bandcamp.com/album/kala
https://facebook.com/queenelephantine

Album Review: Asteroid – III

The “reactivation” of Swedish trio Asteroid, following a two year hiatus, has quickly led to the release of a seven-track third album rather unsurprisingly called III. Mostly we are dealing with the standard fayre of chunky swathes of fat fuzz over a groovy shuffling beat interspersed with thick, meaty riffs and walking solos. Like a slumbering Graveyard or Horisont, this is inspired retro; an evocative step back into the crackling bliss-buzz of 70s rock n’ roll.

“Pale Moon” has a recycling topline riff that buzzes about like a bee trapped in a bottle. It’s a total earworm but, by the third run-through, not in a good way. It’s a blessed relief when its steady disintegration into white noise is finally complete. “Last Days” swings a little more; a loose-limbed slice of Americana with a sweet, folky hue.

Robin Hirse’s emotive vocal wraps itself lazily around the rhythmic backline drawing you temptingly into each track. His lyrics are often dark – “Death will come, he always does / for each and every one of us” – complementing the melancholic tones that lurk within the music. For “‘Til Dawn” he gnarls up his delivery to match the bass-boogie and old-school riffery. For “Wolf & Snake” he bristles as his vocal drops in the mix and takes on a powerful, cracking quality to it. Solid, intense and heady at every turn, the groove makes this a sure-fire stand-out.

With the tracks sliding off the bat, chilled, smooth and easy. it’s a bit of a shock when “Them Calling” hits. Suddenly the music gets urgent, driven with menacing mantras and demonic choral chanting. Warnings such as “Like the pain of a rusty chain around your neck / I’ll make damned sure that you never will forget” quickly make you realise we have strayed from the true path. Rather brilliantly, the metallic tang of steel invades the chords and the distortion and overdrive begin to shatter our repose.

III is a cracking little step back in time with a nice twist in the tail. It’s sadly a tad short at 35 minutes and besides a couple of tracks it fails to bring anything especially new to the table. Having said that it’s spectacularly solid and funnily enough makes for a great driving album.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/11/asteroid-iii-fuzzorama/

Album Review: Nadja - The Stone Is Not Hit By The Sun, Nor Carved With A Knife

Coming just 5 months after their last album release, Sv, one does wonder quite how Nadja achieve such a level of productivity. I mean, what the hell? Do they live in a recording studio? Do they just live jam this stuff? Yes, it’s basically a 3-track drone-cum-noise album, but it still needs to show ingenuity and progression. Well, with this particular pair of inquiring minds and their safe hands, I’m confident they can still steer it to a satisfying conclusion. Can they?

Well, there’s definitely some progression here. More melody than before, some interesting warm tones and FX tweaks. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That mysterious album title – what gives? Well, it comes from a runic inscription on a Norwegian gravestone – the Eggja Stone – which actually provides some of the lyrical content on the record. And the tracks?

“The Stone” is loaded with elephantine potency. It twinkles like splintering glass falling upon its top layer, and sinks down to the alien, sub-aqueous thunder of metal under extreme pressure. After ten minutes, spasms of electric guitar kick in to set up the whirring, bass-heavy clank of some vast industrial machine. Blasts of steaming hiss squirt as if from pin-holes as ethereal voices whisper non-sequiturs and pistons drive the beast towards a semi-melodic, melancholic middle-section before returning to the melee.

“The Sun” is the lightest, most appealing prospect I’ve heard from Nadja for a good few years. With rich, ambient tones and emotive, spiralling stringwork, this plays like an ambient, post-rock track not too dissimilar to something from the back catalogues of Palms or OSI. There are vocals that whisper around the edge of your lobes, without ever taking root inside your ear canals. They are sung as if from behind some parallel dimension. There are waves, there is a beach and a sun and someone is talking close to your ear. It’s unsettling, and even more so when the whole image begins to dissolve into a dark malevolence of phantom-like white noise and subterranean crush. A wall of sound, sprawling, crawling and devouring all.

“A Knife” is far less ambitious than its compatriots. It’s a mixture of atmospheric, ambient drift, vibrant distortion and bristling fuzz and forms a 22-minute amorphous journey through a skyscape of sound.

Ultimately, each movement owns the space in which it exists, each differing in character, each stamping its authority upon the listener. Fans of drone and ambience will find these new worlds excitingly moreish. Is there enough to warrant repeat journeys? Considering its mammoth 79-minute runtime, maybe not for a while but, hell, we’re glad we visited.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2016/10/nadja-the-stone-is-not-hit-by-the-sun-gizeh-records/