In recent years, French atmospheric rockers Klone have built their name on making music that’s as deeply introspective as it is sonically powerful. Le Grand Voyage, the band’s first release for UK post-progressive specialists Kscope on 20th September, is an album brimming with that sense of searching and self-discovery, its 10 tracks living up to its name in unabashed no-stone-unturned existential exploration.
“Our music allows the listener to travel and ask, ‘What is the spirit? What is the matter?’ and those kinds of questions,” says guitarist Guillaume Bernard. “The title refers to the wandering of the mind. It all came our singer [Yann Ligner] who came up with something in English like ‘The Great Journey’. We all liked the meaning but weren’t sure how it sounded. Eventually we realised it would be easy enough for people to translate and understand in our native tongue.”
Much of the inspiration on forthcoming singles ‘Breach’, ‘Keystone’, and ‘Hidden Passenger’ came from pondering the great philosophies of life, those eternal unanswered questions like who we are, where we are going and, ultimately, what happens next. It was the uncertainty and confusion surrounding mortality, the notion that something or nothing awaits us, which felt like an unlimited creative playground for the French art-rockers.
Chelsea Wolfe has always been a conduit for a powerful energy, and while she has demonstrated a capacity to channel that sombre beauty into a variety of forms, her gift as a songwriter is never more apparent than when she strips her songs down to a few key elements. As a result, her solemn majesty and ominous elegance are more potent than ever on her forthcoming album, Birth of Violence to be released on Sargent House September 13th.
Today she’s unveiled the album’s opener and lead single, ‘The Mother Road’, a harrowing ode to Route 66 that immediately addresses Wolfe’s metaphoric white line fever. It defines the nature of the record-the impact of countless miles and perpetual exhaustion-and the desire to find the road back home, back to one’s roots.
Listen to ‘The Mother Road’ here:
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Chelsea Wolfe Acoustic Tour:
31/08: Pasadena, CA – Pasadena Daydream Festival * (Non Acoustic Set)
18/10: San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
19/10: Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
21/10: Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
22/10: Estes Park, CO – Stanley Hotel
24/10: Chicago, IL – Metro
25/10: Detroit, MI – Senate Theater
26/10: Toronto, ONT – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
27/10: Montreal, QC – Le National
29/10: Boston, MA – Royale
31/10: Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
01/11: New York, NY – Brooklyn Steel
03/11: Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
04/11: Charlotte, NC – McGlohon Theater
05/11: Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
06/11: Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
08/11: Dallas, TX – Texas Theatre
09/11: Austin, TX – Levitation
11/10: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
12/11: Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
13/11: Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
15/11: Los Angeles, CA – The Palace Theatre
16/11: San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
18/11: Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
20/11: Seattle, WA – The Showbox
21/11: Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre
* All dates with special guest Ioanna Gika except 31/08
The industrial techno-rock duo Cubanate have just issued a video for ‘Kolossus’, the title song from their brand new EP. The spectacular, frenetic clip is directed by E Gabriel Edvy of Blackswitch Labs, who previously made a video for a track from front man Marc Heal’s 2016 solo album The Hum.
The EP marks Cubanate’s first new music in over two decades and contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND. Released on 7th June, it was previewed at live shows in London (co-headlined with Pig) and Leipzig (Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival) in early June.
Canadian composer Scott Morgan’s 12th long-player as Loscil takes its title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It’s a deeply fitting analog for Morgan’s own musical process across the past two decades, fraying forms and tones into widescreen mirages of opaque texture and negative space. The name Equivalents referred to Stieglitz’s notion of the photographs as being equivalent to his “philosophical or emotional states of mind;” the same could be said of these eight weighty, shivering chiaroscuros of sound. Each piece unfolds and evolves enigmatically, adrift in low oxygen atmospheres, shifting dramatically from pockets of density to dissipated streaks of moonlit vapour.
The entirety of the record was created specifically for the album with the exception of ‘Equivalent 7,; which began as a dance score for frequent collaborator Vanessa Goodman. The album version of this track was reworked with Vancouver musician Amir Abbey aka Secret Pyramid.
Ahead of the release of new album Of The Sun in September, Polish alternative rock act Trupa Trupa offer up a slice of dreamy yet motorik post-punk in the form of anti-fascist song ‘Remainder’, as well as announcing a handful of tour dates.
“It pretends to be nice,” says singer Grzegorz Kwiatkowski of the album, “But really, it’s not nice. These are contemplative songs about extremes. Sometimes, I call it vital pessimism. We cherish our freedom but the place where we are from is also a grim reminder of the evil that people are capable of. We cannot forget it. We cannot justify it. We must remember and not be indifferent.”
Tour dates announced so far:
24.09 – HAGUE (NL) – PAARD 25.09 – PARIS (FR) – POINT ÉPHÉMÈRE 27.09 – LONDON (UK) – CORSICA STUDIO 8.10 – NEW YORK (USA) – UNION POOL 9.10 – WASHINGTON DC (USA) – PIE SHOP
Joni Void is sharing a new video for the song ‘Non-Dit’ – created, performed, and shot by Jean Cousin (aka Joni Void) alongside frequent collaborator Sonya Stefan, the video draws inspiration from Joni Void’s riveting live show while highlighting Stefan’s beautifully gauzy, dream-like visual aesthetic. In the artists’ own words:
“The visual worlds of video artist Sonya Stefan and Joni Void collide for Mise En Abyme, as her experimental 16mm films meet the glass-effected projections from JV’s live performances, combined here to form a multi-layered “screen in a screen in a screen” music video for ‘Non-Dit’. Naomie de Lorimier (aka N NAO) prepares bouquets in a trance-like state, and performs vocal loops, while Sonya & Joni smudge the digital video with light-works and shots of flowers from two 16mm projectors, with crystals, glass and water placed in front.”
Portland, OR noisy metal duo Wizard Rifle who will release their 3rd album on 30th August through Svart Records, are streaming new track ‘Rocket To Hell’.
The band comment, “This sonic stew encompasses all the usual elements of Wizard Rifle: gut-punching, down-tuned sludge punk riffs interwoven with psychedelic overtones and triumphant builds with vocal harmonies and dual yells. Lyrically the song is much like a hangover from a thousand-year orgy of global greed. It deals with the shortcomings of mankind and the individual in the face of the apocalyptic consequences of its self-created extinction. Take the ride; strap in and blast off to this seven-minute rager.”
Stream ‘Rocket to Hell’ here:
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Wizard Rifle emerged from the metal groundswell of Portland Oregon in 2009 bent on annihilating the complacency of genre pigeonholes and throwback tropes. Their elusive sound contorts and leaps from sludgy and psychedelic, to thrash, noise and beyond, accented by vocal harmonies and shouts. On first listen, many scoff at the possibility that such a cacophony could be produced by just two band members, but seeing is believing the force that is Wizard Rifle, and skeptics become Kool-Aid guzzling disciples before the altar. Are you next?
Teaming with Nanotear Booking, Guitarist/Vocalist Max Dameron and Drummer/Vocalist Sam Ford have delivered frenzied live shows extensively across the US and Canada including appearances at SXSW, Psycho Las Vegas, Sabertooth, Hopscotch, Crucial Fest, and Musicfest NW. They have shared bills with the likes of The Melvins, High On Fire, YOB, Lightning Bolt, Nick Turner’s Hawkwind, Danava, and SubRosa, and hit the road with Bongzilla, Buzzov*en, Black Cobra and Church of Misery to name a few. Their two full length releases, 2014’s “Here in the Deadlights” and 2012’s “Speak Loud Say Nothing” have drawn great praise and kept critics and fans on their toes. Their upcoming self-titled LP, due out this summer via Svart, pushes the boundaries even further with the aid of metal mix guru Billy Anderson at the helm of the studio.
Wizard Rifle are preparing to join seminal psych metal band Acid King and rising nightmare grungers Warish for the Busse Woods 20th Anniversary Tour this summer in the U.S.
Acid King Busse Woods 20th Anniversary Tour Dates with Wizard Rifle and Warish
Pelican, the instrumental quartet whose singular vision of heavy music eschews classification, recently announced their first full length in six years and today they’ve released a new song from it along with US and EU additional tour dates. ‘Cold Hope,’ the second track to be released from Nighttime Stories, due June 7th via Southern Lord Recordings, is an unrepentant crusher imbibed with moments of atramentous psychedelia and arguably the heaviest track on the album. With sold-out shows in Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh the band has also announced an additional batch of US dates that include Champagne, Cleveland, Columbus, and Grand Rapids along with an Autumn EU tour (full dates below).
Nighttime Stories marks the band’s first release written front to back with guitarist Dallas Thomas, who took over guitar duties upon founding member Laurent Schroeder-Lebec’s departure in 2012. In the process of writing the album, the quartet endured a slew of realisations, tragedies, and glimmers of optimism that guided the creative process to the most potent work of their nineteen-year career.
Nighttime Stories was an album title initially proposed for Tusk, the hallucinatory art-grind band that included Pelican members Trevor Shelley de Brauw, Larry Herweg, and Schroeder-Lebec, in addition to vocalist Jody Minnoch. The writing of Nighttime Stories was instigated shortly after Minnoch’s unexpected death in 2014, and some of the dissonant viscera and dark psychedelic structures that were characteristic of Tusk’s sound began to unconsciously inform the album’s direction. In homage to their departed colleague, Pelican applied the previously discarded title and pulled many of the song titles from notes Minnoch had sent to inspire the direction of the unrealised album. As the writing of Nighttime Stories progressed Thomas also experienced a heavy loss with the passing of his father, to whom the album pays tribute on opening track ‘W.S.T.’ (on which Dallas performed his guitar parts on his father’s Yamaha acoustic).
A Primitive Evolution (A.P.E.) is an alternative rock band based in Toronto, Canada. Formed in 2007, they have developed at their own pace, creating a constantly evolving soundtrack utilising their brand of dark industrial rock.
Becoming is the group’s third album and was released in late 2018. Recorded at their own Desolation Studios, it includes collaborations with writer/producer Ian D’Sa (Billy Talent) and engineer Kenny Luong (Metric).
Raw and visceral yet displaying soul and beauty, the 13 tracks that comprise Becoming blur the boundaries between rock, metal and electronica and show off an array of influences that include Nine Inch Nails, The Cure, Tool, The Prodigy, Ministry, Radiohead, Alice In Chains and Guns N’ Roses.
With featured inclusion in films such as ‘Chastity Bites’ and the vampire musical ‘Suck’, A.P.E.’s music has also been used in several TV shows, while locally they have won the ‘Best Rock Band’ gong at the Toronto Independent Music Awards.
‘Close Your Eyes’ is taken from Becoming, and you can watch the video here:
As we eagerly await the 31st May release of their debut LP Honey, Lungbutter have shared another advance track from the album. “Intrinsic” is a foreboding, slow burn, finding a doomy three-note pattern of guitar crud and slow, caustic vocal lines to build thick tension, before careening towards explosive release punctuated by vocalist Ky Brooks’ most impassioned and full-throated shouts. It’s a tightly-wound, thrilling complement to previously-released Honey track “Flat White”.
Montréal trio Lungbutter serves up an exhilarating and relentless barrage of astringent noise-punk, at times refracted variously through sludge rock and slowcore. Kaity Zozula’s tri-amped guitar squall occupies a huge tonal space from low-end bass to paint-peeling treble, redolent of blown-out Melvins/Flipper fuzz and indebted to the frenetic dissonance of Keiji Haino or Merzbow. Song structures coalesce around guitar riffs of shifting tempos and the backbone of Joni Sadler’s muscular, deliberate drums, while Ky Brooks’ wry phenomenological sing-speak vocals – at once mantric and declarative – deconstruct one brilliant lyrical theme after another, dancing along the knife-edge of dispassionate acerbic examination and wide-eyed cathartic revelation.
