The album came out last autumn in Europe, but is just today finally seeing its North American release, and to celebrate, Danish metallers Rising and their label, Exile on Mainstream, have been kind enough to let me stream the band’s debut full-length, To Solemn Ash, front to back. It’s a record that runs the gamut of modern heavy, sounding on a song like “Passage” as the poppiness of Mastodon‘s The Hunter might have had it not been so overly processed and reminding of Entombed‘s deathly grit on “The Vault.” The 10 tracks are catchy and heavy in equal proportion, balancing brutality and melody with precision and a feel that is neither amateurish nor contrived.

Interplay between bassist/vocalist Henrik W. Hald and guitarist/backing vocalist Jacob Krogholt is a central source of melody, the latter bolstering the rough, lower register of the former with harmonic shouting that fits well alongside the subtle complexity of the arrangements. Later track “Heir to Flames” works in Leviathan-esque acoustics, but by the time closer “Seven Riders” thunders its stop-start riff upside your skull, even the Torche-worthy chorus feels like one more tool serving to enhance the crushing sound.

Rounded out by Jacob Johansen‘s steady pulse on drums, Rising‘s first record is remarkably assured in its aesthetic, heavy as fuck and delivered with authority. Please feel free to find that out for yourself by streaming To Solemn Ash on the player below.

Introducing the band and the album, Hald says:

“Hello everyone! We are Rising, a heavy metal three-piece from Denmark. Back in October, we released our debut album To Solemn Ash in Europe via Exile On Mainstream. Now the time has come to make it available to the States. We are super excited about our album being released on another continent and hope to follow up with a tour one day. You can stream the entire album right here on The Obelisk. Enjoy and stay heavy on the heavy!”

Rising‘s To Solemn Ash is available now from Exile on Mainstream. For more info, check out the band’s site or the label’s store.

Reduced by one guitar, the now-foursome Fuzz Manta made their return earlier in 2011 with the sophomore outing, Opus II, on CD and vinyl through Gateway Music. I wasn’t a huge fan of their 2009 Smokerings debut, finding it mostly generic but for the standout vocals of soulful frontwoman Lene Kjaer Hvillum, but with Opus II, the Copenhagen natives bring more elements of classic rock and blues to complement their natural-sounding fuzz, and the results are surprisingly impressive across the eight songs. Hvillum is still in the lead role and provides the album its several high points, but being down a guitar has forced Fuzz Manta to be more creative stylistically, and the added organ work of Jesper Bo Hansen melds gorgeously with the band’s sound. Hansen appears on three tracks – the early “Man with No Face” and side B’s closing duo “Corrosion” and “Let Me Walk” – adding rich melody alongside the vintage-style distortion of Frederik Jensen’s guitar and letting bassist Morten Clod-Svensson and drummer/recording engineer Pelle Moltke have room to flesh out the grooves in the rhythm section – which they don’t seem to have much trouble doing anyway, even on the songs without organ. As the album gets moving with opener “Motumann,” the shifts in their aesthetic are almost immediately apparent.

The groove is primary. The guitars and bass insistent. The drums forceful. The vocals perfectly cadenced. Fuzz Manta, from the very first minute of Opus II, sound like a more confident, more stylistically nuanced and more individual band than they did on Smokerings. “Motumann” strikes early with one of the record’s catchiest choruses, and offers a subdued break in its middle that foreshadows some of Opus II’s bluesier material. They cut the tempo behind Jensen’s solo and nod toward doom without ever really getting there or losing their rock sensibility, and through it all and the final chorus return, Clod-Svensson and Moltke sound like they could go anywhere with ease. That proves fortunate as “Man with No Face” begins with tempo and riff cadence similar to Deep Purple’s “Strange Kind of Woman” – Hansen’s organ only furthering the comparison as it works in Jon Lord-esque tandem with Jensen’s guitar. The bridge layers in acoustic guitar among the electric and organ, bass and drums, as Hvillum reiterates and reinterprets the chorus with jazzy flow. It’s not surprising when the rush returns and the song returns to its verse/chorus pattern, but the solo section and final chorus satisfy anyway in a way they might not have on Smokerings, and as if to confirm the growth of Fuzz Manta’s songwriting, the mostly acoustic “Quiet Monday” balances a breathy Stevie Nicks delivery from Hvillum over folksy Led Zeppelin picking and percussion. While the turn in approach might seem abrupt and maybe cutting short the momentum the first two tracks have built up, in the context of heavy ‘70s traditionalism, it makes more sense and sets up the riffier side A finale, “Lithia’s Box” to seem that much heavier with its layered rhythm and solo guitars, which gradually give way to Opus II’s first showing of the jam, where Clod-Svensson’s running bass makes me most regret the fadeout that cuts the song at 8:39.

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That must have been some jam session back in 2008 for Øresund Space Collective to get three albums out of it. And it’s not like they’re skimping on the forthcoming Sleeping with the Sunworm — the thing is 56 minutes long! One huge jam with some minor overdubs, as you’ll see below, and the somewhat amorphous collective have another one in the can. 11 records in six years. Bless their improvising spaceprog hearts.

This came through on the PR wire:

This is the 11th release by the completely improvised space rock band from the Øresund region in Scandinavia. The band is mainly made up of members from Copenhagen, Denmark and the Malmö, Sweden area. This is the last of the material from the October 2008 studio session that gave us the Dead Man in Space and Slip into the Vortex releases. The music on this CD is one long 56-minute space rock jam!

Says Dr. Space: “We split it into three parts for ease of play. It starts very slow heavy and spacey with a massive sound, before the track heads into a new directions with some beautiful guitar. An uptempo section develops after 15 or so minutes and features some intense guitar and synthesizer interaction. Due to an out of tune synthesizer, a new synthesizer section was overdubbed by Mogens. Magnus also replaced one of his guitar sections but other than these two small sections it is a completely improvised piece of music. Enjoy! A heavy and emotional piece of music.”

Sleeping with the Sunworm was recorded and mixed at the Black Tornado studio in Copenhagen. Mastered in Göteborg by Henrik Udd. The players were: Magnus – space guitar/synth, Stefan – space guitar, Jocke – bass, Kaufmann – drums and percussion, Dr. Space – synths, Mogens – synths. The album is due in December and is a limited digipak hand-numbered edition of 500.

If you count live albums, limited CDRs and studio offerings, the combination Danish/Swedish outfit Øresund Space Collective have a total of 25 releases under their belt since 2005. Being a fan of the ridiculously prolific in general, it’s hard not to stand in awe of that level of output and that kind of commitment to making music. So far in 2011, they’ve released four studio records.

A rotating cast of a lineup featuring members of Gas Giant, Siena Root, Sula Bassana and countless others means each Øresund Space Collective offering is going to have a different edge to it, and since the music is always instrumental and always improvised, you’re bound to run into some variation on the traditional Hawkwindian space rock theme.

In terms of the inevitable “where to start?” question, I don’t think there’s any other way to go about it except to dive right in. They’ve got five full records streaming and available for purchase on their Bandcamp page, but I was granted permission to host a couple tracks here from 2011 albums Dead Man in Space and Entering into the Space Country, so I figured 40 minutes over the course of two songs should be enough to give some impression of what Øresund Space Collective are all about. Hope you dig it:

“Space Jazz Jam 2.2″ is taken from Dead Man in Space, was recorded in October, 2008, and released April, 2011. “Born Between Stars” comes from Entering into the Space Country, was recorded September, 2010, and released August, 2011. More info on Øresund Space Collective and their epic discography is here.

When we last heard from him, Copenhagen preacher of the lysergic Lorenzo Woodrose was telling us to turn on, tune in and fuck off with the collective Dragontears. Now back under the moniker Baby Woodrose – the band taking its name from the Hawaiian baby woodrose plant, whose seeds are known to have psychotropic effects on those who eat them – our man Lorenzo takes us back to the very roots of the band with Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers (released by Bad Afro). The 15-track, 39-minute full-length is a collection of the earliest Baby Woodrose demos, written and recorded by Woodrose during a rough patch in 1999 that had him crashing on the couch of his then-bandmate in On Trial and current-bandmate in Dragontears, The Hobbit and coming up with over 50 songs’ worth of material following a series of trips with the seeds from which he now takes his last name. He recounts the time in the liner tray of the digipak Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers comes in (the gorgeously psychedelic artwork of Kiryk Drewinski both inside the package and out is also worth noting), and the result is that the album, in addition to functioning as a complete full-length with a flow one song to the next, also gives followers of Baby Woodrose an idea never before available of how the band began and just how central Woodrose himself has always been to the process.

Apart from a cover of The Illusions’ 1966 single “City of People,” all of Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers is comprised of Woodrose original songs, and even though they are simple in terms of structure – it’s supposed to be; the garage rock elements of Baby Woodrose’s sound really comes out here – it’s still an impressive feat, and no doubt Woodrose had his work cut out for him in mixing, mastering and whittling down the glut of material for this release. Those familiar with Baby Woodrose will revel in the chance to revisit some of their earliest cuts – most would appear on the eventual 2001 debut, Blows Your Mind! – but even for someone who hasn’t followed the band over the course of their career, the immediacy with which these songs hit speaks for itself. In comparing these versions to the final album tracks, these have a directness to them even apart from the rawer feel of the recording. They’re definitely rough, but they show Woodrose’s talent for songwriting and love of mid to late ‘60s psych, as well as awareness of what was happening in the international stoner scene at the time. His voice, as ever, reminds in its inflection of Monster Magnet’s Dave Wyndorf, and he plays the rest of the instruments on Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers, so it’s about as much a solo venture as you can get.

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The focus is aural crush for two-guitar Danish trio Double Space, who make their debut with a self-titled, self-released 12” vinyl. The single (you could probably call it an EP if you wanted, I don’t think the band would mind) is just over 12 minutes long, and the members of Double Space offer modern pummel in varying paces throughout, keeping an eye on the balance between nasty-sounding riffs and creating a tension in the music and vocals. Double Space begins with the longer of its two tracks, “Bent,” which immediately introduces listeners to the band’s hefty sound via a surprising amount of low end for a group without a bassist, drum hits (and killer fills) from Per Silkjêr and, before too long, a frantic intensity that plays well off dronier tendencies. They make the most of their feedback, for sure, but there’s more to Double Space than just stoner riffs and crashing cymbals.

Guitarists Mikko Mansikkala Jensen and Rasmus Rosenkilde Jensen work well together, keeping hold of the riff while also pushing “Bent” into noise rock crunch before drawing back to a mid-paced section. The vocals, delivered by the latter Jensen and Silkjêr are shouts, but they’re mixed incredibly well, so that if you want to focus on them in listening, you can, but they’re never so far forward as to be dominant over the riffs and leads – which for the kind of chaos Double Space are creating, is just the way it should be. The second side of the 12” is devoted to “The Rock,” literally and figuratively. Shorter than its predecessor by a full minute at 5:39, “The Rock” is more consistent in terms of tempo, and based on a grooving riff that’s positively lethal and perfectly executed. Silkjêr’s performance is again a highlight of the Double Space approach, and as said riff crashes head-first into plodding doom (a turn the band seems adept at making), the drummer is all the more in the position of grounding the song, which he does excellently.

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The populous Danish outfit Dragontears specialize in a brand of heavy psychedelic pop that you simply don’t find in the American scene. Not only is the group’s third album, Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!! (Bad Afro), blissed out and loaded with all the synth swirls, backing vocals, electric tones and whathaveyou that you can handle, it’s also undeniably pop-driven, with at least the first several of its total six tracks boasting catchy classic psych choruses that, the more you hear them, the more you want to hear them again. Fans of heavy Europsych will recognize fronting figure Lorenzo Woodrose from the long-running and still very much active Baby Woodrose, and Dragontears also boasts members of On Trial… and probably five other bands. Hey, there are eight people. It’s bound to happen.

Joining Woodrose, who handles bass, guitar, drums and organ (it’s a rotating cast, and given the fact that no one seems to do just one thing, one gets the impression that whoever picks up whatever instrument and makes noise with it gets to handle it for that song or given period of time), are The Hobbit, Ralph A. Rjeily, Anders “Evil Jebus” Onsberg, Moody Guru, Fuzz Daddy, Lars Von Lundholm, Emma Acs, Sebastian Winther and The Adam. If the personnel doesn’t say it enough, Dragontears is more of a collective of friends built around Woodrose and a couple other core contributors than a band with a set lineup composing songs. The approach is dangerous, as it could lead to uneven songwriting and an incongruous flow that could be the undoing of an album like Turn on Tune in Fuck Off!!, but with Woodrose’s vocals as the element most up-front, Dragontears avoids any such issues. The album’s flow is linear, despite the break into farther-out space territory with “Time of No Time” four tracks in, and moves easily, especially in the latter half, where druggy hypnosis takes hold and the psychedelic haze seems to float one song to the next.

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With the early fuzz tone of the guitar and the insistent rhythm, it’s uncanny how much “In the End” from Highway Child’s second album through Elektrohasch Schallplatten, Sanctuary Come, sounds like “Hey Bulldog” from The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. With the McCartneyist piano bounce (transposed onto an organ, interestingly) of the memorable “When the Sun Burned the Ground” following immediately, the record very quickly becomes a mystery tour of the most magical variety, offering moments of Lennon, McCartney and Lennon/McCartney as filtered through retro tones and psychedelic tropes that, while sounding vintage, are actually modern innovations to the genre.

“When the Sun Burned the Ground” might be the highlight of Sanctuary Come, but even if it is, it’s only because of the function it serves in the side one medley of songs. Opener “Red, White and Blue” (gone before you know it, so smoothly does it lead into the next song), “In the End,” “When the Sun Burned the Ground” and the title track take the Abbey Road approach and bleed into one another while at the same time introducing vastly different musical ideas. The title track takes the hopping piano notes already used and puts them atop a droning fuzz riff with swirling noises to accompany. Only the silence that follows “Sanctuary Come” lets you know you’re into another phase of the record.

All well and good, but it’s worth noting how much of a departure it is for the Danish four-piece. Last year’s On the Old Kings Road debut felt more garage rock and less lush than many of these tracks, and was playful in a less mature or sophisticated way. The songwriting on that album was good, but Sanctuary Come feels put together on a different level entirely. Not only is the band worrying about guitar, bass and drums, but organs, guest spots from the likes of Lorenzo Woodrose (he shows up on “Turn Me On”) and other dashes here and there of Sgt. Pepper to throw into the mix. “Once is Once too Much,” the first song after the medley ends, takes a Lennon-solo feel and works it into their already established frame of psych. Vocalist Patrick Heinsøe, for what it’s worth, does a more than respectable job adapting to the demands of the song.

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Finally collected on CD for those of us who prefer our schallplatten on tiny, ungrooved slabs of digitally readable plastic, the three volume Summer Sessions from Danish jam-masters Causa Sui offer a shot of warmth no matter the season, boasting free-form instrumental explorations across a trio of distinct (both physically and sonically) discs from Elektrohasch. Whether it’s the Krautrock jamming throughout, the organ or the horns that pop up, Causa Sui manage to retain both an identity and a flow amidst all the obvious improvisation and spontaneity, Summer Sessions Vol. 1-3 relying a good bit on the kind of unplanned magic that can only come when someone presses record and a band lets itself go outside the reaches of structure.

Of course, these jams (as do most) follow a structure all their own, of peaks and valleys, builds and payoffs, atmospheric phenomena dancing a blue Sunday all over “The Open Road” from Vol. 2 — whatever the hell that means — while the natural peacefulness of the band so clearly in their element is carried over as dreamily as the fleeting melodies themselves. But, the whole verse/chorus thing, which is what’s typically meant by structure as it relates to the pop/rock format, is nowhere to be found and not at all missed. Causa Sui engage in psych bliss, material across all three sessions of the swirls and waves you’d have to expect given the focus on ambience throughout.

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Denmark‘s Causa Sui, who recently released their three-volume vinyl Summer Sessions series as a triple-CD box set, are a prime example of the differences between European and American hippie rock. Where US hippies are still sucking the long-dry teat of Grateful Dead-aping jam bands and pretending they’re anything other than commercial ’90s alt holdovers, European bands like this trio are throwing a hefty dose of psychedelic originality into what they do and making something that’s as much worth hearing as it is doubtless fun to play. Point: fucking jam bands suck, heavy psych kicks ass. Here’s Causa Sui live at this year’s Burg Herzberg Festival to back me up. Don’t let the fact that they look like a bunch of guys who’d try to hit on your girlfriend at the airport in Luxembourg stop you from grooving out.

If you know stoner rock, if you’ve been around the genre for a while, then you know there are bands from all around the world who use the sound as a launch pad for highly unique and creative endeavors, and there are bands who, quite simply, don’t. But even most of those acts have something individual about them, whether it’s their subject matter, a specific songwriting quirk, or even an exceptional player who stands out from the unit, making the whole band noteworthy in the process.

In the case of Danish distortion-junkies Fuzz Manta, it’s the latter, and the exceptional player is frontwoman Lene Kj?r Hvillum, whose soulful vocal delivery helps lift her band’s full-length debut, Smokerings (Bad Deal Records) out of the trap in which genericism might otherwise wholly ensnare it. Even with her going punch for punch, note for note with the lead guitar on “Night Fright,” however, there is little else on the album to catch experienced listeners off guard.

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As soon as I turned on On the Old Kings Road — originally released last year, now serving as the Elektrohasch debut from Danish garage rock four-piece Highway Child – and heard the powerful brew of “Lonelytime Blues,” with its potent mixture of The Beatles‘ “Oh! Darling” and Queens of the Stone Age‘s “The Sky is Fallin’,” I knew this was the kind of band who, when they’re at the bar talking to your girlfriend after their set, you don’t get up and go to the bathroom saying, “I’ll be right back.” They’ll be gone and you’ll be left with a tab that — wouldn’t you know it? — includes a not insignificant amount of packaged goods to go. No way man, if you gotta hit the head, you hold it. You’ll feel better later.

They take dirty blues and the chic swagger of modern ’70s revival indie and throw in just enough testosterone to make it realistic and basically, what they really want is to make out. As the “Sit on my face and tell me that you love me, come on” chorus (accompanied by some guitar oddly reminiscent of The Talking Heads — it’s weird, but it works in the song) of “Highclass Bitch” attests, the raunch on On the Old Kings Road is thrown in with a kind of childish charm that — given a considerable boost by the catchy songwriting and overall simplistic nature of the tracks — works out to a fun balance. Not one I’d play at the family reunion, but it’s perfect as a catalyst for one of those sunglasses-wearing moments where you’re driving and you feel like you’re the coolest motherfucker on the road even if none of the other cars know it. Even if no one’s looking. Even if you drive a Volvo.

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No, it’s not Xena: Warrior Princess fan fic, though given how much of a nerd I am for just about everything Pittsburgh‘s Shadow Kingdom Records puts out, it might as well be. The young label, aside from having signed on to release the new album from way underground Maryland doom mavens Iron Man has put on one of the best and most genuine reissue stints I’ve ever come across — and I say “genuine” because the records are genuinely cool and the kind of stuff that no one would dig up just for the cash. The band is Altar of Oblivion, the album is called Sinews of Anguish, and the label checked in with this news:

A brand new Epic Heavy Metal band with Doom touches has emerged from the great Denmark. I received their Demo in 2007 and was blown away by the potential this band had. Martin (guitarist/songwriter) has a really unique riffing style that I love. The riffs are really catchy, heavy, and choppy (for lack of a better word). When you finally get used to his guitar playing you?ll find out it?s a signature sound that he developed. The combination of the Epic styled songwriting with some really subtle Doom-y sections mixed with the very young, talented, and uniquely distinct Mik on vocals puts this band to the top of the Epic Heavy/Doom metal scene. If you liked the demo at all (by the way ?Wrapped In Ruins? is again featured on this new album) the new album is definitely were you would have wanted the band to be by this time because the songwriting has exceeded the expectation. This album is a full-on conceptual, emotional trip about the pain, suffering, and horrors of war. With that in mind, expect nothing but crushing riffs filled with sorrow, despair, and with powerful vocals with so much emotion, depending on your mood might bring a tear to your eye. Altar of Oblivion are keeping the Epic Doom torch aflame that was started by the great and well respected bands like Candlemass, Solstice, Solitude Aeturnus, Revelation, Trouble, etc.

1. The Final Pledge (5:23)
2. Wrapped in Ruins (6:15)
3. Behind the Veil of Nights (7:19)
4. My Pinnacle of Power (9:12)
5. A Retreat into Delusions (6:17)
6. Casus Belli (5:35)
7. Stainless Steel (7:08)
8. Sinews of Anguish (11:08)

Check them out (keep in mind the master sounds a lot better) : http://www.myspace.com/altarofoblivion

Shadow Kingdom Records