EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Take a Dip in River Cult’s Halcyon Daze

Jordan Jerabek
Premieres
Do you like to throw your ears to the whim of open, swirling compositions? Or are you just a sucker for the fuzz? Either way, the debut long player from Brooklyn’s River Cult has you covered. At a glance, Halcyon Daze is a dirty, bluesy, and doomy stomper of a record. Thickness in tow, it hits like a champ enough to satisfy those strong of neck. At the same time, it’s complete with loose, jammy structures, gradual and dramatic builds and breaks, fat tones, and freak out solos - it has all the ingredients for a truly great heavy psych record. With five tracks at a hearty seven-minute minimum, it gives you plenty to get swept up in without compromising their unique vision that brings these worlds together. Lucky for us, these dudes break from the (what can be) formulaic nature of these genres, and come out with a truly spectacular 2018 record. Head on over the jump to stream the entire thing!

FULL ALBUM STREAM: Launch on a Psychedelic Journey from Mother Engine’s Hangar

Scott Murphy
Premieres
The "jam" is one of those musical devices that walks a delicately drawn fine line. On one side are classics like Can's "Halleluwah" or The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray," both of which are defined by an embrace of improvisation, interplay and gradual evolution that keep the song fresh throughout a roughly 20-minute run time. But on the other side, you have endless journeys of gratuitous musical masturbation that create a significant imbalance of enjoyment between the players and their audience. Walking this line is obviously difficult; though defined by higher tier musicianship, an effective jam band can't venerate their abilities as musicians at the expense of songcraft, particularly in terms of defining the genres and styles from which the extended composition is being drawn out of. All of this makes it that much more impressive that Mother Engine have not only mastered the "jam" formula, but excelled at replicating that equation fourfold on their third full-length outing Hangar, which we're stoked to be able to premiere for you in full.

Elder – Reflections of a Floating World

Eden Kupermintz
Reviews
Transportation is one of the biggest things that music can accomplish, to pick the listener up from where they sit and deposit them in some other place. The truly great albums in the short history of modern music all achieve this unbelievably elusive feat; something about their sound whisks away your attention and enraptures you within a world, of the band's making. Not so long ago, we made the claim that Elder's Lore does just that, encapsulating the fabled trope of "the hero's journey", launching its listeners into an epic journey through music and expression. How do you follow something like that up? A critically lauded album can often be a double edged sword, raising immense questions around potential, scarcity, and circumstance. More so when the album is such a transformative journey: do you have what it takes to create that sensation in your listeners again or will this album, however good, be fettered and miss the mark of greatness?

Royal Thunder – WICK

Joe Whitenton
News
Atlanta hard rock outfit Royal Thunder have been making waves in the rock and metal blogosphere since their debut 2010 EP. Their sound is an amalgam of all the dadrock essentials: some blues rock, a little prog... Read More...