Reviews: Phoxjaw, Turned To Stone, Reasons Behind, The Mon (Reviews By Mark Young, David Karpel, Simon Black & Rich Piva)

Phoxjaw - Notverynicecream (Hassle Records) [Mark Young]

Right, so I’ll be honest I have absolutely no idea how to describe this music, it sounds like nothing I’ve ever listened to before. Its not conventional in any way and I can say without fear of contradiction there is nothing like it in my music collection. I think it is an indication of just how healthy, diverse and incredible the music scene is in the UK at the moment. It’s just breath-taking.

The following 12 songs go everywhere in their quest to bring you the most dizzying album they could. Evermore is all noses, impassioned singing and electronica that could be found at home at any dance night. This is not just thrown together its incredibly thought out and blows into Apples with a fantastic 1234 rising riff with what will be probably the most shout along song this summer. Its not heavy metal in that those born before 2003 will get first time. Icecreamwitch is more similar to early 80’s indie but through that modern filter. Again, on the second time of listening it just hits. There is a ton of stuff going on in it, does it want you to dance? To head bang? Do it all. There are no limits or restraints here.

Each song is crafted so differently than the one before it, it is going to be an experience to watch them perform this live. Sungazer is one that has that infectious, ear worm effect that mixes so many different threads together that it shouldn’t work but does. There is an overriding sense of fun, of pure joy that seeps out from each song, thesaddestsong ever has hints of The Killers with its vocal delivery and is another stormer with a repeating keyboard line and rising backing vocals that is pure class.

I’m going to state it now that I’ll not review another album like this, that offers such a range of approaches and that mines so many different types of music. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this album contains, with each subsequent listen you become aware of little things and ideas that you missed on the first pass. Knives represents another change in tack as it drops a heavy riff bomb that comes from nowhere with an almost nightmarish backing that feels like it is being stretched to breaking point.

Last track, Serpentsdripfromtheskies combines that 80’s indie with a modern sound with another catchy ear worm that fights with dark riffing for supremacy. I would suggest that you, dear reader should go out and give them a listen. I know of no one else who sounds like this. Go into this with a closed mind and you will get nothing from it, and you will hate it. Embrace this for what it is, a monumental collection of songs that will grab you from the start and not let go. They are touring the UK soon so now is the best time to catch them before they explode. 10/10

Turned To Stoned - Chapter 8: The Wake (Ripple Music) [David Karpel]

Turned To Stone Chapter 8: The Wake is the latest in Ripple’s brilliant split series gathering pairs of bands blasting righteous sounds from the underground. The label continues to bring the heavy, splitting this one between two awesome bands whose bottom loaded, desert doom riffs compliment each other’s for a consistent but no less crushing listen. High Desert Queen’s debut, Secrets Of The Black Moon, released on Ripple mid-fall of ‘21, was a certified house-on-fire ripper that garnered well deserved praise. Meanwhile, Blue Heron’s Ephemeral, released a year ago, shifted another artery through the heart of the heavy desert rock highway. Honestly, a split with these two bands had to be obvious.

High Desert Queen takes Side A with three tracks that fit perfectly with the heavy melodic songs offered previously on their aforementioned debut. The crunching opening chords of Black Moon, the steady thrum of the bass, and sludged momentum of the drums are familiar and welcome. HDQ are just so damn good at what they do, by which I don’t only mean Ryan Garney’s powerfully emotive vocals, or the gargantuan riffs of Rusty Miller, or his daughter Morgan Miller’s bass anchoring every riff and melody along with Phil Hook cracking boulders behind the kit.

I also mean they write great, memorable songs with intriguing lyrics, catchy choruses, electrifying guitar lines you can’t help but sing along with, and infectious melodies. Drift Into The Sun slows it down and gets quiet a bit for a brief, psych infused desert ballad. Hearing Garney harmonize some (with Miller?) gives us another dimension of HDQ’s breadth. Roll The Dice closes the side with a stomping mid-tempo rocker that feels like it could have been the B-side to their single off of Secrets, The Mountain Vs The Quake. While these tracks don’t sound much different than what was offered on their debut, they’re all great additions to the HDQ songbook, which we can only hope continues to expand.

Side B gives us three tracks from Albuquerque, New Mexico’s desert pirates Blue Heron. Bringing a fuzzy, Kyuss-like heat, the band grooves gargantuan riffage. Singer Jadd Shickler switches up from a higher pitch melodic yearning to an emotive growling low end, giving the singing a dynamic quality that keeps things interesting. This is especially true in a song like Able Baker, the first cut, where the opening words set the scene: “Underneath the green atomic skies tonight…” In all three tracks, bass player Steve Schmidlapp sets up a rolling foundation punctuated by the powerful drumming of Ricardo Sanchez. Meanwhile, the guitar prowess of Mike Chavez is evident in the massive riffs, the dark tones, and his more melodic lines that shine in through the fuzz. 

Day Of The Comet shows the band keeping the mid-tempo pace aggressive with Chavez given space to create psych elements underneath the controlled chaos of a landslide that is the combination of Schmidlapp and Sanchez. Like HDQ’s offering on Side A, Blue Heron’s third track, Superposition picks up the pace just a bit, but still sways easy even as the bass and drums pummel. Also like HDQ’s offerings, these three Blue Heron tracks don’t differ from what they did on Ephemeral, which is not a knock at all. No one who digs that album, including myself, could possibly complain.

While neither Side A or B provide much evidence that either of these bands are pushing new directions or new avenues of possibility on this release (despite HDQ’s shift to first gear in Drift Into The Sun), both sides do provide fans with fresh reminders of why they’re deserving of much more attention and repeated listening. As an introduction to two of the best new stoner desert doom bands actually from the desert, this split is the perfect entry. It’s also a great record for fans wanting more from these two. Play it loud for best results! 9/10

Reasons Behind - Architecture Of An Ego (Scarlet Records) [Simon Black]

One thing about Metal, is it’s never short of a new sub-genre or two. Now I’m old enough to remember ‘Heavy Metal’ splintering into Glam and Thrash in the 80’s and when one of those branches experimented with ‘Rap Metal’ for a laugh and inadvertently created a new branch and leading to Nu-Metal a whole bunch of that generation spent a decade not buying records in disgust. It has got a little silly these days, with more sub-genres than an overactive petri dish demonstrating mitosis in the four decades since, and with the overall style clearly not going anywhere soon I can see this continuing as long as people can get creative, so it’s with some trepidation that I approach my first Electro Dance Metal album. 

This album explodes in a suitably forthright manner from the get-go, and despite the fact that I know that playing this live without just pressing ‘play’ on a click track is going to be a challenge, one can’t fault the energy, precision and punch that this record brings from once you get past the inevitable Synth programmed intro. It’s hard and heavy, but keeps the Dance vibe which means it’s an even compromise between catchy as, and heavy as fuck.

Elisa Bonafe’s vocals feel more like the approach you would expect from a Symphonic act, and the obvious point of diversion here from all things traditionally Dance is that these are full sung vocal lines without an obvious sampler, autotune or harmoniser in earshot, which is a damn good thing and means (click track notwithstanding) that this would actually probably work in a live setting. Gabriele Sapori has about three hats in the studio here covering guitars, programming and keys, but his six string work catches the ear, was surprisingly good and with a nicely progressive technical bit of shredding creeping in from time to time to retain the metal credibility.

The songs as I said remain catchy throughout, although mainly at the same tempo but it’s when the guest vocalist start dueting with Bonafe that things really step up a level and stop sounding too samey. I didn’t expect to find this at all up my street, which proves occasionally it is best to just shut up and listen. 7/10

The Mon - Eye (Supernatural Cat Records) [Rich Piva]

The Mon is the electronic/ambient/minimalist side project of Urlo of the psych/sludge/post metal power trio Ufomammut. His second album under this moniker, The Eye, is nothing like Ufomammut, so if that is what you were expecting going in, you may want to reset your expectations. The Eye is a more minimalist beeps and blips ambient record rather than anything rock related. Kudos to Urlo for doing something different and having a passion project, but for a guy who is here more for guitar driven heavy stuff, this one was tough for me. 

The Eye is a minimalist electronic ambient album that creates a certain dank atmosphere. The soundscapes are pretty bleak, so if you are looking for a pick me up record this is not it. The opener, The Sun, is minimal key work with Urlo’s haunting vocals and a sinister synth noise floating around the back. It’s a spooky tune, and this is pretty much what you get throughout The Eye. Some minimalist strumming and layered vocals (he had a bunch of his friends from other like mined bands like Neurosis and The Otolith guest on here) create another dank and drab atmosphere on The Secret, which again is pretty cool. But the whole album of this style is a bit much for me and really dampens my mood, which may be what he was going for. 

I mean there is a song called The Manure Of Our Remains so…I think you know just from that what you will be getting yourself into. If this was the 80s and you really wanted to be goth the kids would have dropped The Cure records and brought in some real feelings and sadness like on The Eye. But for me, even the 38-minute run time was long, especially with The Manure, where there are periods where all you here is pretty much nothing.

The Eye was not for me, but I am sure that there is an audience for The Mon as a soundtrack to despair, a walk-up track for pain, or a theme song for sadness. It’s just not something that I would ever really want to listen to again no matter how well done it is. 5/10