Short Reviews | February 11th, 2024

• SHORT REVIEWS • Our fourth edition of Short Reviews for 2024 releases finds me grabbing at six releases from the general pool of early February with an outlier or two from later in the month. This year Short Reviews will arrive every ~1-2 weeks dependent on how many extra releases are worth talking about. // These are more easygoing and casual than longform reviews, so relax and think for yourself. I’ve done my best to showcase the most interesting works that I come across while still presenting some decent variety here but choices boil down to what sticks, what inspires or what is worth writing about. — If you find something you dig go tell the band on social media and support them with a purchase! If you’d like your music reviewed, read the FAQ and send promos to: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

As the work of Markov Soroka (Drown, Krukh, Tchornobog) matures in concept and presentation it isn’t enough that they’d create an alluring, sound and sense of place but now each of their main points of concentration begins to move with sharper illustrative purpose. In the case of Aureole the groaning tropes of atmoblack guitar past are the main hindrance, a point of rote and tensionless cinematic panning which obstructs the otherwise captivating happenings of their citadel. This is surely due to this being one of their longer-running black ambient and/or atmospheric black metal projects and there being some need to hold onto the identity forged therein. The one place where setting beauteous guitar work within the black, sort of martial haze of ‘Alunarian Bellmaster‘ generates compellingly surreal results is “Orbiting Among Alunarian Ruins” and largely because the longer form of the piece and the trip it takes yet the shorter song which follows (“Beware That Which Inhabits the Belltower”) feels doubly effective for its focus on tension built movement, a black wind pushing through. For my own taste if they’d keep the feeling of the music horrified and let the grandeur of the halls outline themselves sans any remnant of atmoblack/post-black guitar movement it’d all feel cohesive on a different level but that doesn’t keep the noisome cosmic dread of Aureole from shining through for an entertaining hourlong black ambient haunt.

Hyvinkää, Finland-based ambient black/dungeon synth project Druadan Forest returns to the realm of earthly magicks and high fantasy inspired scenery on this decidedly different approach beyond his ‘Dismal Spells From the Dragon Realm‘ (2019) per this sequel. ‘Dismal Spells… Part II: The Night Circus‘ does not repeat the immersive vision of the first part, avoiding the 15-20 minute pieces of its predecessor for quickly set scenes averaging about four minutes in length and presenting in sort of soundtrack format wherein each piece forms its core melody or sense of scenery before finding a point to end, or loop upon. You’d think the first thing I’d do is mark the record down per its lightened immersion but if this was a matter of actions-per-minute this work is more dense with expression and lightened away from points of ambient repetition. Much as I’d loved their approach on past releases, the split with Old Sorcery circa 2021 in particular, this is more easily read and creates a cohesive set of songs which proceed in some manner of clear narrative with consistent instrumentation and medieval melodic voice. I will get hundreds of hours of ‘use’ out of this album when reading and such, so, its value is difficult to apply to a usual “rock album” rubric but needless to say I appreciated the contained vision of this record and the boreal-set fantasy it illustrates.

If you’re showing up for an album from The Obsessed in 2024 chances are you’re looking for the more aggressive heavy rock side of the Wino experience alongside some practical fusion of the band’s legendary “proto-doom metal” sound as well as the stoner metal side of Spirit Caravan, all of which’d been absorbed into this form around 2016. With half of the band’s line-up replaced beyond the release of the well-received ‘Sacred‘ (2017) and plenty of dark times in between the fellow has plenty to pine and roar about, kinda leading with his pen out on “It’s Not OK” and “Stoned to the Bomb Age” two songs which showcase the stoner rock/metal and doom sounds his general body of work has always embodied as well as the seemingly stark-naked honesty and defiance inherent to his lyrics, which’ve always got a twist upon what seems obvious buried in the experience. Though I’m not sure I want to know what “Jailine” is about most of this record does well to diarize the artist’s headspace, some old ideas and some new, which incorporate a satisfying enough spread of stoney heavy rock movements, plenty of gloomy riffs and a few throwaway pieces. For my own taste the more stoned and serious they are, the better and this meant “Yen Sleep”, “Wellspring-Dark Sunshine” were the big songs on my end but there is no denying the catchy signature work done on opener “Daughter of an Echo” and “Stoned Back to the Bomb Age” as these are likely to work best in a live setting.

Boston, Massachusetts-based heavy rock trio Sundrifter return with a revivified take on their grunge-era inflection of spaced-yet-introspective desert rock on this third full-length album. The album begins with a dramatic unearthly tone, their most mulling in though focus delivered with a Soundgarden-esque swagger wherein the vocals quickly become the focal point of their delivery rather than the fuzzed swerving of the riffs. By the time we’ve hit “Begin Again” the mood of the album hangs thick, they’ve more-or-less stuck within a similar feeling throughout and my interest begins to wane. The psychedelic rub of “Final Chance” helps break up the drain of it all with a bigger buzzing guitar tone and down-stroked verse riff, which recalls the most recent Abrams album (‘In the Dark‘) where the stoner side of things meets up with alt-metal/rock of an indistinct era. Though I’d never felt like ‘An Earlier Time‘ ever found its dramatic peak it does well to get a lot off its chest and write a few catchy songs, all you could ask for with this style of heavy rock in mind.

This third full-length album from Oslo, Norway-based duo Golden Core plays a bit like an atmospheric sludge record to start, grinding into its best moments like an ethereal High on Fire (see: title track “Kosmos Brenner”) given an extreme metallic edge. That said ‘Kosmos Brenner‘ has its own cinematic, or, prog-metallic edge where their ambition to convey the grand events of creating mythos and folklore leave a surreal, unpredictable waft in the air as they duck into the ever-churning twists of longer pieces like “Ginnungagap” and “Tåkeheimen”. Those longer pieces serve as bookending for the experience and feature some of the more impressive classical / soundtrack inspired movements, such as the dreary cello finale arrangement for “Ginnungagap”. This is initially the most important piece overall in terms of introducing this freshened and sophisticated voice of Golden Core whereas the title track and “De Dødes Hær” remind us that these are prog-sludge fans first and foremost. In the years since their first two recordings they’ve delivered some of the serious enough potential many suggested was there back in 2017-2019, and this is impressive enough.

Formed back in 1994 and more recently revived Haystack is a Swedish noise rock trio who’d always had their own heavy rock informed bent upon the late 80’s/early 90’s noise rock deconstruction. For this record they’ve stripped it back to an authentic as possible display, presenting it in stark black and white imagery and running the gamut between their garage rock freakouts, harder-assed Unsane-esque declarative pieces, and less predictable aggro songs that recall something like ‘Come in and Burn‘ minus the Moog, and a bit of ‘Same Difference‘ in its cadence… if you speak late 90’s heavy rock you’ll get what I mean. The swing of Midwest noise rock and post-hardcore are there and as such this album sounds classic but not fully drowning in grunge-era quirk and that fits the bill as far as basically everything I’d want from a Haystack album in 2024. Vague lyrics, plenty of rhythmic variation and moods, and hey throw in a huge, glassy distortion-tipped bass guitar tone and I will probably be stuck on this album for at least the rest of the month.