Geese – Getting Killed [Things You Might Have Missed 2025]

By Dear Hollow

When a non-metal album is this good, the Great Ape mandates that we write about it – it’s unclear if it’s for posterity or humiliation. But when you have a band called Geese, the latter seems more likely. New York City fowl collective owe just as much of their attack to Bruce Springsteen and Television as to Swans and The Velvet Underground, as its drawling and honkin’ blend of roots rock, noise rock, blues, country, funk, and post-punk is a clusterfuck that feels distinctly like something a band called Geese would make. Mastermind Cameron Winter’s warbling drawls, Emily Green’s smooth bluesy plucking and jagged shutters, Dominic Digesu’s groovy bass undercurrent, and Max Bassin’s rock-solid drumming collide – all in the service of the sonic incarnation of the uncanny. Geese offers another slab of rock’s fringe movements that builds upon critically acclaimed predecessor 4D Country. Like its cover, Getting Killed is both angelic and violent, smooth and jagged – and undeniably American.

While its openers serve to showcase Geese’s two extreme sides in explosively screamy noise rock (“Trinidad”1) and bluesy pop-country (“Cobra”), the uncanniness of Getting Killed is much more nuanced. Beneath each guitar riff and yearning melody, just as much with its more jagged movements, is a dedication to deterioration. Most tracks begin with a solid funk groove or a predictable chord progression, an undercurrent of dissolution growing over the course of its three-to-six minutes. Unlike the improvised randomness so many artists claim as a reflection of group chemistry, Geese’s movements feel calculated to the minutest detail in the service of a parodied and uncanny version of rock music, such as maddeningly repetitive riffs (“Husbands,” “Islands of Man,” “100 Horses”), repetitive cliche lyrics drawled with irony and apathy (“Cobra,” “Half Real”), and splattered movements guided by heart and hate (“Trinidad,” “Getting Killed”).

The blend of tones that exist here is noteworthy, as the sunny country, groovy punk, and jagged noise movements feel anachronistic on paper yet somehow feel exactly what Geese ought to be doing. Noisier tracks move seamlessly into the more melodic and vice versa (the brooding “100 Horses” to the ethereal “Half Real”; the smooth ballad “Au Pays du Cocaine” to the chaotic and arrhythmic “Bow Down” and explosive “Taxes”), highlighting the intentionality behind the curtain of Getting Killed. Winter’s vocals are initially jarringly loud and off-kilter, but just as the twinkling quality that emerges from asynchronous guitar/piano noodles (“Getting Killed,” “Islands of Man”) or the brass emerges in short bursts like gusts of wind (“Trinidad,” “Husbands”), the drawling baritone stumbles upon vocal lines that get seared into the mind, catchy and seamless in their delivery – although initially feared lazy (“Cobra,” “Half Real,” “Long Island City Here I Come”). Geese, while embodying much more than just noise rock, nonetheless captures lightning in the bottle with its layers of intensity giving way to an uncanny catchiness.

Geese’s more intense moments recall the noise rock/post-punk misanthropy of White Suns or the quirky squonks of Black Midi, but its uncanny country twang recalls the clouded and colloquial conversations of Mark Z. Danielewski’s book Tom’s Crossing: yes, it’s a western, but a caricature of it with a bleak heart beating at its core. Geese embodies rock’s most extreme peripheries in a breed of music that is as alienating as it is catchy, unique and on-brand for a band whose caliber of sound feels uncanny, otherworldly, and delightfully apeshit. Sure, it ain’t metal, but Geese offers some of the most intriguing music of the year regardless.

Tracks to Check Out: “Trinidad,” “Cobra,” “Getting Killed,” “100 Horses,” “Long Island City Here I Come”2

#2025 #AmericanMetal #BlackMidi #Blues #bruceSpringsteen #Country #FunkMetal #Geese #GettingKilled #JPEGMAFIA #NoiseRock #NonMetal #PartisanRecords #postPunk #Rock #Swans #Television #TheVelvetUnderground #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2025 #WhiteSuns

3 non-metal songs that I've got living rent free in my head:

1. Mathew Wilder - Break My Stride

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4c_SkROzzo

#NonMetal

Swans – Birthing Review

By Dear Hollow

It’s hard to keep up with Swans. Since 1982, Michael Gira and company have cranked out sixteen studio albums, eight EPs, and ten live albums (not to mention all the compilations and side projects), influencing underground stalwarts like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Neurosis, Godflesh, and Napalm Death, as well as more mainstream acts like Nirvana and Tool. No genre was safe, as noise rock, no-wave, industrial, sludge, post-punk, and post-rock were impacted in the process – yet Swans have always had their own inimitable and uncategorizable sound. In Gira’s words, “Swans are majestic, beautiful-looking creatures – with really ugly temperaments.” Seventeenth studio album Birthing, a supposed end to the big sound of Gira’s millennial reformation, is an affirmation of both why some love them and why others stay far away. Maybe the real Swans were the friends we made along the way.

The path of Swans has been one of blending ugliness with a sheen of pristineness. They’ve had it all, from the ugly industrial sludge of Filth and Cop, the more regal industrial noise rock of Greed and Holy Money, the Gothic rock groovers of Children of God, the lush starkness of White Light from the Mouth of Infinity, the post-rock-imbued apocalyptic prophecies of The Great Annihilator and Soundtracks for the Blind, the trancelike 2010s comeback My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, the formidably monolithic trilogy The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man, to the minimalist folk-embedded Leaving Meaning and The Beggar. If you wanted to devote a week to the Swans discography, have at it. Or get into the process of Birthing.

In spite of its higher focus on more acoustic textures and Michael Gira’s wild baritone, Swans’ use of repetition is a tether to which their grasp of reality is consistently mutilated, interspersed with moments of sparse accessibility. Seven tracks and nearly two hours of content greet the ears with repetition both nauseating and hypnotic, tracks undeniably modern-era Swans: folkier, more acoustic and organic, and retaining that trademark longwindedness and industrial/noise barb, shifting from mood to mood with ease. You’ll hear painful dissonance, ritualistic passages of pounding percussion, Gira’s unnerving vocal lines, and synth-heavy crystalline atmosphere exchanged across mammoth runtimes. Especially in the first act, ugly stretches stitch together more uncanny valley passages of accessibility, like a synth rock jam session with pulsing basslines (“I Am a Tower”), beautiful piano ballads graced by spidery melodies and Jennifer Gira’s haunting vocals (“Birthing,” “Guardian Spirit”), catchy little choral “bum bums” (“The Merge”), and instrumental ambient swells (“The Healers,” “(Rope) Away”).

Gira and company find themselves in an odd predicament: in the shadow of their own influence. Swans has smartly focused on more acoustic and organic textures with their most recent releases, but in comparison to the 80’s and 90’s, and even the 2010s, Birthing cannot hold a candle. No one can do music like Swans, but it feels as though the trilogy of The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man was Tsar Bomba, and every subsequent release has been the fallout. Likewise, the raining ash of Birthing is lethal, unnerving, and undeniably Swans, but it doesn’t feel as monumental. The only track that feels crucial is the absolute fever-dream “The Merge” in its wholehearted dive into the abyss. Each track features Swans-isms that sear themselves into your brain if you let them, but therein, very few moments justify why you should devote two hours to listening to them – especially if you are not a fan to begin with. Their focus has never been to be catchy, impress with riffs, or go wild with novelty – as such, the trademark tapestries of droning dissonance (“I Am a Tower,” “Guardian Spirit”), free jazz/industrial noise explosions (“The Merge”) are just difficult – aside from Swans’ inability to edit.

I may be Swans lone apologist at AMG HQ, and maybe I’m insane for it. Birthing is nowhere near the influence of its predecessors – while retaining that noise and industrial sneer throughout, it’s a far more gentle album than the ugly classics of the band’s heyday. However, it’s probably the best of its era, blending its bad temperament with its more post-rock atmospheres and semi-accessible passages that keep listeners this close to insanity. That being said, it’s still Swans. And a whole lot of Swans. Two hours of Swans. Yay/ugh.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Young God Records
Websites: swans.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/SwansOfficial
Releases Worldwide: May 30th, 2025

#2025 #35 #Ambient #AmericanMetal #Birthing #Experimental #ExperimentalAmbient #FreeJazz #Godflesh #GodspeedYouBlackEmperor #Industrial #May25 #NapalmDeath #Neurosis #Nirvana #NoWave #Noise #NoiseRock #NonMetal #PostRock #postPunk #Review #Reviews #SludgeMetal #Swans #Tool #YoungGodRecords

Jeris Johnson – Dragonborn Review

By Dear Hollow

If you don’t know Jeris Johnson, let that horrendously edited self-portrait that would feel like a masterpiece of character design on Nintendo 64, like Lara Croft’s pyramid boobs, really sink in. For the uninitiated, he’s that guy who partnered with Papa Roach for a “reloaded” version of “Last Resort;” he did a collaboration with Bring Me the Horizon for a remix of “Can You Feel My Heart.” For the initiated, he is big on YouTube and TikTok. For his first full-length Dragonborn, you might be confused about what exactly this album sounds like. I’ve repeatedly spun it, and I remain confused.

What Dragonborn does is drags pop versions of metal, rock, electronic, and hip-hop kicking and screaming into an album entirely devoted to TikTok trends like the “Hoist the Colors” bass vocal covers, Ronnie Radke’s antics, sea shanties, and melodies ripped from classic songs. Jeris Johnson helms the craft with a very confused charisma, a grungy smoky tenor that tries to adapt to the clusterfuck of influences, forcing a square peg of Viking and fantasy imagery through the round holes of trap music, nu-metal, and hard rock. Insufferably bland at best and unbearably awful at worst, influences slamming across the universe with Falling in Reverse-esque abandon. Dragonborn is as bad as you can imagine, and often worse.

Let’s start with the good mediocre passable tolerable. “John” is a dad-rock anthem with a decently written chorus that worms its way into your brain whether you like it or not – conjuring the likes of Nickelback or Staind. Jeris’ cover of Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose,” while utterly unnecessary and only adding a weaker vocal performance to song’s legacy, is as okay as a pop/rock song you hear on the radio in the mid-2000s. Otherwise, Dragonborn’s strengths shine as brief glimmers of potential in isolated passages: the Korpiklaani-inspired plucking in the intro title track isn’t bad; the riffs of “When the Darkness Comes,” “Down with the Dynasty,” and “Not a Person (Freak)” have some weight at first. Johnson’s voice is also capable and has potential, even if he can’t seem to write a solid verse, chorus, or bridge to save his life.1 So, uh, we’re in fucking trouble.

Perhaps the biggest and dumbest thing about Jeris Johnson is his ability to make an audio train wreck impossible to look away from. Interpolations are perhaps most jarring. “When the Darkness Comes” features a central melody stolen from the Arabian riff (aka “Streets of Cairo”) in an “I guess the minor key works if you’re into that” way, the central melody of “Siren Song” is unashamedly robbed from the fucking Christmas goddamn classic hymn “What Child is This?” for fuck sake and I never thought I would be checking that off of my 2024 bingo card. Meanwhile, “Story of Our Lives” tries to force electronic, trap, rap, and Tyr-esque medieval melodies into an orgy with no chemistry; “Welcome to Valhalla” feels like you wanted “Hoist the Colors” to be both a Wardruna cut and a trap metal song by Travis Scott; “Here’s to the Years” features an Alestorm-meets-Dropkick Murphys pirate vibe plus Irish shanty jig that makes me wanna puke; “Down with the Dynasty” is basically a metal cover of “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy without any fun or catchiness; “Not a Person (Freak)” features a We Butter the Bread with Butter-inspired shuddering deathcore breakdown that is only iterated fucking once; “Eat Drink War Repeat” is basically a Brokencyde song with all the soul-crushing cringe and likewise not knowing what sex is; “Ode to Metal” is just a rap/punk song that Ronnie Radke would start beef with someone over; and “Finish Line” is basically a Five Finger Death Punch power ballad. The independent nature of Dragonborn is also plain bad, as Jeris Johnson’s autotuned gaffs shine through “Story of Our Lives” and “When the Darkness Comes” with piercing clarity.

So what’s left? A singer/songwriter who has no idea what kind of album he actually wants. Is he a Viking king? A club-frequenting playboy? A hair-flipping fan of Falling in Reverse? Someone who would actually defend Ronnie Radke on Instagram? Someone who’s likes Shrezzers’ “PVRNHVB”? I’ll tell you who Jeris Johnson is: he’s an influencer on YouTube and TikTok. And Dragonborn is an experiment of the most embarrassing variety, but ultimately is not intended for us. I mean, if you’re into unnecessary variety and TikTok trends, have at it. I need to sit down.

Rating: 0.5/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: STREAM
Label: Self-Released
Websites: jerisjohnson.com | facebook.com/killjerisjohnson | tiktok.com/@jerisjohnson
Releases Worldwide: August 23rd, 2024

#05 #2024 #Alestorm #AmericanMetal #Aug24 #BringMeTheHorizon #Brokencyde #Deathcore #Dragonborn #DropkickMurphys #Electronic #FallOutBoy #FallingInReverse #FiveFingerDeathPunch #FolkMetal #HardRock #HipHop #JerisJohnson #Korpiklaani #Metalcore #MorganWallen #Nickelback #NonMetal #NuMetal #PapaRoach #PirateMetal #Pop #PopRock #PostGrunge #Punk #Review #Reviews #Seal #SelfRelease #Shrezzers #staind #TaylorSwift #Trap #TravisScott #Tyr #VikingMetal #Wardruna #WeButterTheBreadWithButter

Meddl-Meddl-Meddl! #KamasiWashington veröffentlicht am 03.05.2024 „Fearless Movement“.
YouTube-Clip zu ‚Prologue‘: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8cKN1rbJl4

🔗 https://gloomr.de/#1393

#Jazz #NonMetal #NeuesAlbum

North Sea Echoes – Really Good Terrible Things Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

Fewer combos in metal have spurred music in my wheelhouse as that of Ray Alder and Jim Matheos. Their union for Fates Warning’s 1988 release No Exit burst in the budding progressive metal scene with USPM histrionics and Rush-fueled narrative structure. Of course, that was near forty years ago. At sixty vs twenty, your mind (mostly) thinks differently, your voice cracks differently, your hair grays and may even thin. In the case of Alder and Matheos, while immune to the loss of hair, do fall in line to some extent with the other consequences of time. Alder, for his part, has slowly adapted his caterwauling to a lower-register, full-voiced croon, gracing many later era Fates albums with his refined calls, as well as providing some power to important Redemption albums and 2023’s A-Z release. Matheos has foreshadowed his own growing ethereality with the electro-alt-prog of OSI and pet ambient project Tuesday the Sky displaying little of the riff and raucous of his heaviest work. North Sea Echoes, then, naturally follows this gentler path. Do its waves even make a sound worth echoing though?

Maybe you caught the last Fates record or Alder’s follow-up solo release, but even amongst the heavier distortion numbers on those jams, Alder’s performances have tended to his sleepier, softer side. North Sea Echoes, of course, doesn’t sell itself any other way, stirring a current throughout Really Good Terrible Things that’s more of the fizzle of a wave dragged over rocks into a tide pool rather than an open beach crash. In that regard, many of Matheos’ spindly guitar works flitter about like the bright and climbing melodies of a Helios breeze (“Throwing Stones,” “We Move Around the Sun”) with Alder’s warm voice finding the surge in the way synth embellishments could in a less minimal approach. When North Sea Echoes does attempt to hit a little harder with bass-leaning patches and the rare bit of guitar distortion, songs lean toward a build reminiscent of Matheos’ OSI work, albeit approached with a voice fueled by a passion for life in all its peaks and valleys (“Flowers in Decay,” “Empty”).

However, in this post rock-informed, downtempo-tinged, ambient-goaled, North Sea Echoes has a hard time finding hypnosis in any particular realm of relaxation that Really Good Terrible Things enters. After a fairly snappy two-track kick-off, the dreamy-pedaled “Unmoved” springs to life with Alder’s sultry, somber allure in full force, so much so that at the nine-minute mark we’ve already encountered a crescendo far too large—complete with the extended “aaaah aaaah” de-escalation to fade—for an album with seven more slow-burning steps remaining. Later with “Where I’m From” and “We Move Around the Sun” Alder again reaches for the throats of his fiery words only to come back down to a waning, repetitive vocalization. One of these three tracks by itself could have provided the necessary peak in this kind of extra chilled-out Portishead-y experience, but scattered they work against each other to create a successful float.

On the plus side, most of the music rests in the hands of Matheos’ strings and synths, the former of which remains both the most expressive and expansive across this ten-track trek. It’s hard to say whether Really Good Terrible Things would have faired better as an instrumental set, as tracks like “Flowers in Decay,” “Throwing Stones,” and “No Maps” capture a powerful unison between Matheos’ diverse amplifications and Alder’s butter-melting serenades. And if it weren’t for guest Gunnar Olsen simultaneously riding steady on “Throwing Stones” and crashing the kit on “Empty,” I wouldn’t have noticed much that the rest of the percussive presence is all of Matheos’ spacious programming, which shines on the glitchy, upbeat kicker “The Mission.” Closer “No Maps,” however, does stumble a bit in its guitar-lite presentation, relying on a gradual, swirling synth build and Alder to put a lightly-etched period on its still digestible run.

Though, unless you’re really into what North Sea Echoes has to say—the lyrics are fairly uplifting all around—there’s a good chance you’ll check out at some point. I know I did. As a fan of ambient music, I crave immersion. And, despite the time-tested pedigree of the legendary performers involved on Really Good Terrible Things, that immersion never quite finds its pillow-y, smothering hold. Never stealing my breath nor providing the internal space for an inhale that pulls in all the world’s healing air, North Sea Echoes, for me, is neither swell nor even splash.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Metal Blade Records | Bandcamp
Websites: northseaechoes.com | facebook.com/northseaechoesofficial | northseaechoes.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024

#20 #2024 #Ambient #Downtempo #FatesWarning #Feb24 #Helios #MetalBladeRecords #NonMetal #NorthSeaEchoes #OSI #Portishead #PostRock #ReallyGoodTerribleThings #Review #Reviews #TuesdayTheSky

World’s End Girlfriend – Resistance & The Blessing [Things You Might Have Missed 2023]

By Dolphin Whisperer

For those unfamiliar, World’s End Girlfriend has been producing a unique brand of cinematic music rooted in classical composition, post-rock sound palette, glitchy and warped electronics since 2000’s debut Ending Story—very much a stepping stone on this long and forlorn path. Though there’s plenty to enjoy in this Japanese one-man exploration, it was 2007’s Hurtbreak Wonderland that first took my breath away and signaled a string of increasingly wide-viewed, somberly-toned albums that cemented me as a WEG die-hard. Having released only in spurts and singles since 2016’s Last Waltz, Resistance & The Blessing functions as a reinterpreted collection of those smaller works in the grand context of an epic that details the heart-breaking cycle of love, loss, and memory. What a tale it is.

Sometimes your words come back to haunt you, and often sooner than you realize. Kind of like when you ask whether something can go wrong in a given situation. Or when you lambast a one-hundred twenty-four album of unearned epic proportions but end up falling deeply in love with a one-hundred forty-five-minute experimental electronic album that showcases a career’s worth of ideas and a lifetime’s worth of heartache. But I already knew that I was in love with World’s End Girlfriend before I hit play, that’s the way insanity works. And the more I listen to Resistance, the less I feel that any of it is out of place.

True to the nature of a work that looks back at an artist’s past as much as toward the future, long-time enjoyers of WEG will find little details that earmark already striking moments with a stronger sense of purpose. Opening on “unPrologue Birthday Resistance” plays on this most directly by taking a familiar piece from Hurtbreak Wonderland (“Birthday Resistance”) and fizzling it with scratchy obstructions and hard skips, as if a broken cycle threatens to turn again. And in closing it does, with the same melody picking back up, giving way to an ominous sample of a child’s birthday song, and then instead of fizzling out in wild guitar feedback like the Hurtbreak original, “unEpilogue JUBILEE” tumbles up a rising synth clamor that breaks away to what sounds like a heartbeat, amplified and cut away for a short and sweet goodbye message. Songs like “MEGURI” and “RENDERING THE TWO SOULS,”1 originally lacked context as statements of unwanted departure and frantic longing, but in their new respective positions (and with slight re-workings) can give movement to the fragments of emotion that surround them.

Despite the other nature of an album of this magnitude—it’s significant length—each movement of this piece has a powerful and entertaining identity. If you’ve a taste for the whimsy and naiveté of bright love, the initial swing up to “IN THE NAME OF LOVE” will waltz you between triumph and smile alike. If your dreams place you in a world inhabited by vocaloid choirs and reimagining the Edward Scissorhands ice dance in a tunnel of neon lights, the one-two flaying of “Reincarnation No.9”2 and “RENDERING THE TWO SOULS” will twirl you a fanciful landscape. “Blue/0/ +9” might be the best R&B ballad I’ve heard in ages, complete with a tasteful Isley Brothers-kissed, fuzz-filled solo wail. The “Black Box” duo, featuring Japanese footwork specialist CRZKNY, shakes the floor in a way that only hellish EBM can. And, if you make it this far, the final movement from the delicate “himitsu” through the dutiful but frightening rendition of “Ave Maria” leading up to “SEE YOU AGAIN” may cause a tear or twenty to drip from your weary and wondering eyes.

It’s entirely possible that Resistance & The Blessing is a masterpiece. It’s equally possible that it didn’t have to be this much all at once. However, when the heart bleeds with this kind of passion, the only proper reflection rests in staring at the sanguine pool and letting it be what it is. We only know snippets of what has occurred throughout World’s End Girlfriend’s life to release an album full of so much pain, catharsis, hope, and adoration. If Katsuhiko Maeda, the man behind the mask, could ever sit down and explain what each moment means to him, I’m sure words wouldn’t be enough. I’ll be listening to this one for a long time to see if I can get even that close.

Tracks to Check Out: Haha… All of them?3

#2023 #AvantGarde #Cinematic #CRZKNY #DannyElfman #Electronic #ExperimentalElectronic #Glitch #Industrial #ModernClassical #Noise #NonMetal #PostRock #Sep23 #SoundCollage #ThingsYouMayHaveMissed #ThingsYouMightHaveMissed2023 #VirginBabylonRecords #WorldSEndGirlfriend

R.A Sánchez – L’Ottava Sfera Review

By Dear Hollow

The trouble with genre-bending avant-garde artists is the line between utter brilliance and foolhardy amateurishness. Like a sleeping bear of sonic putridity, artists poke it with their toes of jazz and ambiance and drone, and it largely is a matter of time before they’re greeted with the teeth, and consequently, our ears are bathed in confusion.1 R.A Sánchez, proprietor of the ambient weirdness of Black Baptist, offers this odd concoction in solo debut L’Ottava Sfera, a title which is translated to “the eighth sphere” in Corsican. Balancing crystalline and dark ambient soundscapes, jazzy chord progressions and spurts of brass, and a drone weight, all to a pace seen in funeral doom, it takes its sweet and pitch-black time oozing into the bones with sluggish precision.

L’Ottava Sfera does well in emulating the darkness of its cover art.2 Inspired by Catholic imagery, as well as sonic inspirations of experimental jazz, funeral doom, and avant-garde composers like Krzysztof Penderecki and Iannis Xenakis, R.A Sánchez offers a pitch-black sonic exploration into formality, death, illness, and madness, on paper penned like this year’s Swami Lateplate. While albeit merely hinting at metal through expansive soundscapes infected with cancerous doom, L’Ottava Sfera feels heavier and darker than some of metal’s more vicious offerings – as dread and dying course through every fiber of this beast. Undeniably divisive and jarringly stitched together at parts, R.A Sánchez offers a pitch-black descent into meditation and madness through its weaponized gloom.

R.A Sánchez essentially takes funeral doom and drone and strips them to their bare minimum: as atmospheric and unrelenting but its teeth are notably absent, pinpointing its potentially divided reception. Punishment is not his aim, but rather evocation. L’Ottava Sfera’s tracks range therefore from ambient sprawls touched by the crooked hand of drone to dense and unforgiving weight that tugs on the throat. Designed like an unassuming crescendo, the album opens up with the simple and overlong “Nimu,” which can simply feel like a warbling improvisation on a Roland synthesizer. Maneuvering between jazzy chords with underlying pitch shifts, there is little else to be impressed with, continuing into the piano-led “Forma,” whose pastoral chords are interrupted by a staccato break: again, a rather unassuming twist on an unassuming track. However, there dwells beneath the true monster of L’Ottava Sfera at its halfway point: a growing crescendo of drone that adds depth, darkness, and weight to the jazzier proceedings. Even then, the chord progressions stand at odds in “Forma,” with a dark minor scale dominating the drone clashing against the relatively lush major proceedings of the piano.

It isn’t until the full weight of the meticulously constructed and wildly mind-warping “Qutb” that R.A Sánchez reveals his hand. Beginning with a relatively toothless doom beat alongside a synth substitute for squealing feedback, the dirge warps into deep and dark drone slogs that feel the weight of eons, while narrowly skirting the “metal” tag. Balanced with a segment of wonky jazz spasms, a revenant of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, the drone hits as a welcome ton of bricks that suddenly dominates the track with a tastefully religious tone that pairs neatly with the ritualistic flavor. Colossal fifteen-minute closer “Gnosi” continues this trend in the mammoth climax of L’Ottava Sfera, where drums and drone approach an uncanny valley version of brutality (recalling this year’s Rorcal) while the ritualistic and shamanistic drone-inflected jazz drags listeners kicking and screaming into the darkness, recalling Neptunian Maximalism or Zaäar. A true test of patience, interlude “Sovranu” is a sprawling ambient track that slowly and methodically swells from near silence to suffocating density throughout its fourteen-minute ethereal march – although a masterclass in ambient dynamics.

R.A Sánchez toes the line between coyly amateurish and meticulously cunning across the album-long dynamic of L’Ottava Sfera, ultimately landing on a sound best described as soul-crushing – even if it takes a while to get there. The pitch-black tones that embody the destination “Gnosi” showcase the intention and care all along: an ultimate emptiness that scratches under the skin with a duality of both religious and primal weight. The road is bumpy and forlorn and your patience will be tested across its forty-four-minute runtime of divisive genres, but fans of jazz, drone, and dark ambient will find their journey well rewarded.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: STREAM
Label: Lost Tribe Sound
Websites: blackbaptist.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: December 1st, 2023

#2023 #30 #AmericanMetal #AtmosphericDoom #BlackBaptist #DarkAmbient #DarkJazz #Dec23 #Drone #FuneralDoomMetal #Jazz #LOttavaSfera #MilesDavis #Neoclassical #NeptunianMaximalism #NonMetal #RASánchez #Review #Reviews #Rorcal #SwamiLateplate #Zaäar

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#Revolver
CELTIC FROST's Tom G. Warrior picks 5 great non-metal albums for metalheads
Extreme-metal pioneer hails old-school Bowie, groundbreaking post-rock and more

https://www.revolvermag.com/music/celtic-frosts-tom-g-warrior-picks-5-great-non-metal-albums-metalheads

#TomGWarrrior #CelticFrost #NonMetal #Rock #Pop #Folk #Country #Jazz #Classical