Duster – Remote Echoes

 

 

Duster – Remote Echoes
Konkurrent / Numero – 2023
Rock, Lo-fi, Indie, Mumblecore
Rated: ***

I’ve never been a huge listener of Duster. I do have all their albums. And definitely appreciate their version of slowcore. But I simply need to have everything Duster, Helvetia and Built To Spill because of the obsession thing. My obsession with Rancho De La Luna grew to encompass every member of every band that ever recorded in Rancho. Or actually just set foot in that magical studio in the desert. And of course, since Jason Albertini was a part of Queens Of The Stone Age in the very beginning, we need to keep track of everything Mr. Albertini does. Another reason Duster never got much playtime over here, is simply because they were largely unknown over in Europe at the moment they were truly active, back in the nineties. But after re-releasing their debut album Stratosphere for its 25th Anniversary two months ago, they obviously went through the back catalogue of home recordings and found more sketches from that time still lying about. This resulted in the fourteen pieces of music on Remote Echoes, old demo’s, obscure pieces of tracks once released on cassette, all like snapshots from a long forgotten past. The dusty atmosphere ever present, the fourteen tracks, lasting less than thirty minutes give you a glance into the messy bedroom all this was recorded in. Fragmentary, lo-fi, like a collage of incomplete memories the tracks give off that post-rocking, slow-coring, slacker, lethargic spirit with as little effort as possible. The insights given do take you back to that bedroom just mentioned, that filthy room everyone once had. Messy, and dubious stains everywhere… Or as they state themselves: cigarette bums, weed crumbs and stained coffee-cups…

(Written by JK)

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Mudhoney – Plastic Eternity

 

 

Mudhoney – Plastic Eternity
Sub Pop / Konkurrent – 2023
Rock, Grunge
Rated: ****

The last Mudhoney album we mentioned was Digital Garbage back in 2018. And it still is one hell of a kick ass album! But then again, a lot of Mudhoney albums are still kick ass. Indeed, you can grab back to many of them and they will still feel as vital, vibrant, and vibrating with energy as when they were released back in the day. And even though Plastic Eternity definitely isn’t dull or lacking energy, it might not be the most convincing one in their thirty-five-year long history. Plastic Eternity is their pandemic album… “The recording of Plastic Eternity delivered several firsts for the band. With Maddison planning on moving his family to Australia, Mudhoney was forced to work on a deadline, booking nine days at Crackle & Pop! in Seattle with longtime producer Johnny Sangster. Since the pandemic had made it impossible for them to convene in their practice space for nearly a year and a half, this meant they were going in to make a record with an assortment of half-forgotten riffs and nascent ideas rather than fully-fledged, well-rehearsed songs.” It sort of shines through in some of the songs. When it doesn’t, they come in full force, attacking the stupidity of our western society with furious anger and kicking our asses like the Stooges did. Or riffing over some Middle Eastern rhythms and floating down some muddy psychedelic waterfall of ‘crap’… The best thing about Mudhoney might be the fact that as godfathers of grunge, instead of mellowing with age, they seem to get angrier and more politically charged. And that is something we could definitely use right about now! And when you look at it in that light, Plastic Eternity will be seeping into your bloodstream and the rest of your body like the enteral micro pieces… Mudhoney, I love’m!

(Written by JK)

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Boris – W

 

 

Boris – W
Sacred Bones / Konkurrent – 2022
Rock, Post, Experimental, Alternative, Avant-Garde, Metal
Rated: ***

I could have sworn we mentioned Boris before; cause we’ve always been following whatever weird stuff these Japanese freaks come up with. But apparently we only got around to mentioning their 2017 release Dear. And as we’ve only just come to grips with their January release W; they go and re-release their 2019 album called 1985. Reminding us once again about the insane amount of releases the band has released in the almost thirty years of their existence. And all of those releases are very different, listening to them in a row will make you hop, skip an jump through all sorts of rock and metal releases, with only one common denominator; it has something avant-garde, experimental and artsy. And if there is a big surprise on their new album W, it might be the fact that it sort of feels like a continuation of their 2020 record NO. Haunting, murky and misty atmospheres swirling up towards even more abstract takes on what everyone might constitute as music; whispering voices and rustling noises that wisp away whenever a metallic interlude crashes through and oscillates until the fog becomes dark and twisted clamor. Ambient doom lurking around the corner to be instilled into all the drone, the shoegaze and slow hypnotic drowse that is most present on W. But don’t forget they can also do punk sludge… Be ready to be jolted wide awake!

(Written by JK)

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Amyl and The Sniffers – Comfort To Me

 

 

Amyl and The Sniffers – Comfort To Me
Konkurrent / Rough Trade – 2021
Rock, Punk
Rated: ****

Mullets are back! Especially down south, judging from certain Australian bands sporting the hairdo! And so is punk! Punk the old fashioned way! We already fell in love with Amyl and The Sniffers when they were still learning how to hold their instruments but decided to release their debut anyway. Half a decade later we are treated to Comfort To Me, where they sound accomplished, harder, slicker and less ramshackle. Indeed, they sound like they years of playing their instruments and with each other has lead to them understanding both elements. Like a well oiled machine the four come across as an highly electric outfit set to burn at both ends, cause it’s still furious, frayed and fearsome. It’s just that the quality of playing, the effortless way they mix choppy hooks, filthy rhytms with catchy punk and actual ingenuity is astonishing. Classy, well… A little bit classy… But still a bit of rat as well…

(Written by JK)

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Motorpsycho – Kingdom of Oblivion

 

 

Motorpsycho – Kingdom of Oblivion
Stickman / Konkurrent – 2021
Rock, Prog, Free
Rated: ****

When the new record of our jazzy Norwegian friends suddenly appeared a month or two ago; we immediately fell in love with the opening track The Waning Pt. 1 & 2. That driving rhythm, those propelling riffs, that melody, that theme, that refrain, all so wonderfully circling each other. Motorpsycho did it again! It was only after shouting it out across every rooftop we could find that we loved the new Motorpsycho album that we read the press-release. After which we found out that most of Kingdom of Oblivion was recorded during the The All Is One sessions and that the boys just did not think these compositions would fit among that majestic release. Well, we’re lucky that they at least released them, cause hottdamn, these are so intense and so good once again. Cause we already mentioned that circling aspect, but it is so prevalent on this record and it seems to do so around every conceived theme. They often feel like giant improvisations that immediately turned into a full fledged rock song. And then there is the meaning behind it all, the bigger picture, the larger legacy; so well described by Jasper from that great No Man’s Valley outfit and his own Weirdo Shrine blog: “Motorpsycho at least spoke out, had their say. It might not be too late for us. But if it is, and some future civilization will dig out this record they will hear a perfect echo of what this age of man was about: what great powers of creation we possess, and what great powers of destruction at the same time.” Kingdom of Oblivion, another warning and another great moment in music…

(Written by JK)

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Thou – Magus

Thou – Magus

Konkurrent/Sacred Bones – 2018

Metal, Doom, Sludge

Rated: ***

As the few of you crazies that take the time to read the HiVe stuff every now and again know, I’m not a huge fan of the endless guttural growling. Those death grunts and screeches need to be offset for me by something more melodic and cleaner. Otherwise that snarling barrage grates on my soul a bit too much. Thou refuses to bed me with that fact and rightfully so. Cause on their new album Magus, the composition and music are so pitch black, aggressive and gloomy that this would feel completely out of place. This is meant to wear you down, to crush you beneath the waves of concrete riffs and pounding weight. And yet, there is something almost romantic hidden among all this aggression and hate. The way an outsider might carry the weight of the world around on its shoulders. Searching inwards for whatever revelation might save the human spirit. Magus is that guy on the park bench, troubled forlorn look in his eyes due to the wisdom in his heart…

(Written by JK)

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Bardo Pond – Volume 8

Bardo Pond – Volume 8

Konkurrent / Fire

Rock, Psych, Stoner

Rated: ***

We love ourselves some Bardo Pond. We have been loving Bardo Pond for over a quarter of a century. Which is how long they've been around. And a fat lie, cause we unfortunately discovered them almost twenty years ago. Do we love every release to the same extent? Unfortunately, no. But then again there have been so many. They can’t be all homeruns, can they? To be honest, we love their regular studio albums a lot. Almost all of them. And from the Volume releases we can say we love most of them. Volume 8 is definitely, one of the better ones. A damn fine trip and an excellent adventure if ever there was one. We are treated to five journeys that take the listener deep inside themselves or into another world. Psychedelic by default and psychonautic by nature. “A euphoric transcendental journey to a mountain top nirvana, a psychedelic tapestry that slowly unwinds as they travel onwards into the inner mind.” Shit, we could not have said it any better than Bardo Pond explained themselves. Nirvana, here we come!

(Written by JK)

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