Tag: heavy metal

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Slumbering Sun Shares Cinematic “Midsommar Night’s Dream”

Formed back in 2022, Austin-based outfit Slumbering Sun — Monte Luna‘s James Clarke (vocals), Destroyer of Light‘s Keegan Kjeldsen (guitar) and Kelly “Penny” Turner, Temptress‘ Kelsey Wilson, and Monte Luna’s and Scorpion Child’s Garth Condit (bass) — is a Texas underground metal scene All-Star outfit that specializes in “music for crazy romantics,” as they’ve dubbed it, a melodic doom metal that incorporates elements of Celtic folk, grunge, prog rock and shoegaze.

The Austin-based quintet’s full-length debut, 2023’s The Ever-Living Fire debuted at #20 on the Doom Charts. The band played their first show at SXSW’s Stoner Jam, then embarked on a series of regional tours before capping off the year with a set at Ripple Fest.

The band spent the bulk of last year, writing and recording their highly-anticipated sophomore effort, Starmony, which is slated for a limited-edition vinyl and digital release on May 6, 2025. In between writing and recording sessions, they toured the Midwest and released last year’s “Out of the Blue & Into the Void,” a song that seemingly mashes up classic tracks by Neil Young and Black Sabbath.

Slumbering Sun’s latest single “Midsommar Night’s Dream” begins with a gorgeous and pensive piano and string-driven introduction, before morphing into a swooningly heartfelt and nostalgia-fueled dirge anchored around the sort of fuzzy power chords that would bring a smile to the faces of Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Neil Young, all while being arguably the most cinematic song they’ve released to date.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Angus Young!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Angus Young’s 70th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Guatemala’s Cavidades Shares Brooding Dirge “Me Esperas en La Nada”

Nelson Morán is a Guatemala-based multi-instrumentalist and producer, who has spent the past 15 years in the local music scene, including stints with Xb’alanke and Adonis Muerto.

Morán’s solo project Cavidades sees the Guatemalan multi-instrumentalist and producer overseeing all production and composition, which gives the material a deeply personal, idiosyncratic touch. The project sees Morán drawing from doom metal but while venturing into industrial, psychedelia and post-metal. For the Guatemalan artist, this unique fusion of genre and styles helps to create an immersive and boundary-pushing sound.

The project’s full-length debut will feature guest spots from Marleny Ruano (drums) and Carlos Queme (vocals), which add a collaborative touch to a deeply personal batch of material.

Morán’s Cavidades debut single “Me Esperas En La Nada” is a slow-burning and forceful dirge, featuring eerily atmospheric synths, down-tuned power chords paired with guttural howls and a simple yet thunderous backbeat. Sonically, bringing Melvins and BORIS among others, the song according to Morán thematically explores the dichotomy of existence, capturing the beauty and pain of being alive.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Steven Tyler!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Steven Tyler’s 77th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Porto, Portugal’s Verbian Shares Hard-Hitting “Marcha do Vulto”

Since their founding back in 2015, Porto, Portugal outfit Verbian — currently Vasco Reis (guitar, keys, vocals), Alexandre Silva (bass, keys, vocals) and the band’s newest member Guilherme Gonçalves (drums, percussion) — has firmly cemented a reputation for crafting a sound that fuses elements of metal, rock, electronic music with experimental percussion. For the band, evolution is essential to creating heavy music. And that a commitment to revealing profound commitment to revealing profound emotions and letting artistic expression and your muses take you and your music wherever you dare to go.

The Portuguese trio’s self-released debut, 2019’s JAEZ was followed by their sophomore album, 2021’s Irrupçao was released through Italian label Antigony Records. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the band managed to support the album with shows at Porto’s Hard Club and stops in cities across the Iberian Peninsula like Braga, Viana do Castelo, Santiago de Compostela and Aveiro. When Guilherme Gonçalves joined the band in 2022, the band played Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Santander and at Gouveia‘s Romaria Cultural. They closed out the year with an Iberian tour alongside Catalan band Siberia that featured stops in Vigo, Porto and Coruña.

Verbian’s third album Casarder was just released through Lost Future Records. The Daniel Valente and Verbian co-produced effort was recorded with a different approach from the band’s previously released material: The trio did all of the preproduction in the studio, live. “We then built a tempo map and after that we did overdubs,” the band explains. “But the biggest difference was that these were the first songs we wrote with Guilherme on the drums and we believe that is why it’s so different from the previous albums. He brought a new and fresh groove to our music, maintaining the heaviness.”

Casarder sees the band pummeling listeners with hard-hitting riff after riff. But the material never wears out its welcome, and pulls listeners along on a sonic journey through Dali-esque landscapes of rock forms, pulled apart and reconfigured into something mesmerizing and completely new.

The mostly instrumental material sees the band never lingering on a part too long and never wasting a note. And at its core, the compositions are angry, driving and layered without sounding overly technical or indulgent. Interestingly, the distorted, anxious and surrealistic visual style of the album’s cover art, painted by Madelena Pinta, manages to speak to the album’s direct albeit melted psychedelic, electronic post-metal style.

“Casarder speaks a little about the insecurities of artistic expression and personal exposure when it comes to fearing being judged for something that is somewhat outside of what is done in each artist’s niche,” the band explains. “This was the theme that also inspired the album cover.”

Casarder‘s latest single “Marcha do Vulto” is an expansive and bruising composition with elements of post-metal, post rock, stoner rock and No Wave that pummels listeners eardrums while showcasing the band’s and their cast of collaborators, Ivo Magalhães’ (percussion), Pedro Sequeira’s (trumpet), Igor Cavaz’s(saxophone) and Rodrigo Santos’ (trombone) remarkably soulful, technical prowess.

The accompanying live footage features the Portuguese band and their collaborators performing the song in studio.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Pelican Shares Swaggering and Expansive “Indelible”

Flickering Resonance is the Chicago-based outfit Pelican‘s first full-length album in six years. Slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Run for Cover, the album sees the return of founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, who makes his first appearance on a Pelican album since 2009’s What We All Come To Need.

The forthcoming eight-song album also reportedly taps into the spirit of the band’s formative era when Schroder-Lebec along with Trevor Shelley de Brauw (guitar) and siblings Bryan (bass) and Larry Herweg (drums) played shows during the heyday of Chicago’s all-ages club Fireside Bowl.

Fireside Bowl’s booking would often result in post-hardcore, space rock, indie, metal and emo bands sharing bills, which also unwittingly provided a vast array of influences for the then-young band. “A lot of people didn’t hear it at first,” says Schroeder-Lebec of the band’s roots in a panoply of punk-related subgenres. “I was like, well, I guess the metal world is where we fit. But now we’re more willing to acknowledge all the suits we’re wearing.”

Recorded by longtime collaborator Sanford Parker, Flickering Resonance sees the band’s long-known thick sonic backbone remaining intact, but while demonstrating a more humanistic side for the band. 

“When Laurent left and we were able to carry it through, there became a real sense of gratitude for the fact we still have this artistic outlet and a community of people who want to support it,” the band’s Shelley de Brauw says of Schroeder-Lebec’s ten year sabbatical from the group. Fittingly, that feeling of deep, grounded appreciation doesn’t just reside within the band’s members, it’s expressed on every track of the album. 

Last month, I wrote about “Cascading Crescent,” a forceful, cinematic yet soulful ripper that recalls The Sword and others, while anchored around some scorching riffage and thunderous drumming. 

“Indelible,” Flickering Resonance‘s latest single continues a run of expansive, cinematic rippers that seemingly draws from desert and stoner rock, psych rock, Hawkwind and others, anchored around forcefully scorching and swaggering riffage paired with thunderous drumming and big hooks and choruses.

Much like its predecessor, “Indelible” is accompanying with a mind-bending psychedelic visual by multidisciplinary artist Joshua Ford that features geometric shapes and seemingly supernatural and natural phenomena.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Jason Newsted!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Jason Newsted’s 62nd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Black History Month: Living Colour

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and pays tribute to Living Colour.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy Black History Month/Happy 67th Birthday, Ice T!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month and Ice T’s 67th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Chicago’s Pelican Shares Cinematic and Expansive “Cascading Crescent”

Flickering Resonance is the Chicago-based outfit Pelican‘s first full-length album in six years. Slated for a May 16, 2025 release through Run for Cover, the album sees the return of founding guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, who makes his first appearance on a Pelican album since 2009’s What We All Come To Need. The eight-song album also reportedly taps into the spirit of the band’s formative era when Schroder-Lebec along with Trevor Shelley de Brauw (guitar) and siblings Bryan (bass) and Larry Herweg (drums) played shows during the heyday of Chicago’s all-ages club Fireside Bowl.

Fireside Bowl’s booking would often result in post-hardcore, space rock, indie, metal and emo bands sharing bills, which also unwittingly provided a vast array of influences for the then-young band. “A lot of people didn’t hear it at first,” says Schroeder-Lebec of the band’s roots in a panoply of punk-related subgenres. “I was like, well, I guess the metal world is where we fit. But now we’re more willing to acknowledge all the suits we’re wearing.”

Recorded by longtime collaborator Sanford Parker, Flickering Resonance sees the band’s long-known thick sonic backbone remaining intact, but while demonstrating a more humanistic side for the band.

“When Laurent left and we were able to carry it through, there became a real sense of gratitude for the fact we still have this artistic outlet and a community of people who want to support it,” the band’s Shelley de Brauw says of Schroeder-Lebec’s ten year sabbatical from the group. Fittingly, that feeling o deep, grounded appreciation doesn’t just reside within the band’s members, it’s expressed on every track of the album.

The album’s latest single “Cascading Crescent” is a forceful, cinematic and yet soulful ripper that reminds me a bit of The Sword and others, anchored around some scorching riffage and thunderous drumming.
 
The members of the Chicago-based band will be embarking on a lengthy touring schedule to support the album that includes a July 20, 2025 stop at The Meadows. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 64th Birthday, Vince Neil!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Vince Neil’s 64th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Glasgow’s Theodosia’s Revenge Shares a Bruising Ripper

Theodosia’s Revenge is an emerging, Glasgow, Scotland, UK-based metal outfit. Their latest single “Walking with Fire” is a bruising and primal ripper with scorching riffage, raise your beer high-in-the-sky hooks and choruses and thunderous drumming that recalls early Metallica and the RidingEasy Records roster.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 57th Birthday, Mike Patton!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Mike Patton’s 57th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 70th Birthday, Eddie Van Halen!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 70th anniversary of Eddie Van Halen’s birth.