ninehertz

A round up of 9 recent releases in bitesize review form...

When I spotted a vageuly psychedelic gig poster for the happening Sheffield venue Sidney & Matilda, I checked out the headliner online, just in case. And lo and behold, both they - Scott Hepple and The Sun Band - and the support band The Crystal Teardrop were (a) very good (b) on the mighty Rise Above Records and (c) each had an album coming out on 2nd May. I bought a ticket, and awaited release and gig days with anticipation. Scott Hepple and The Sun Band gift us English Mustard, full to the brim of psych garage grooves. It at times verges on 60s rock and pop - albeit with garage grit - sounding fresh and exciting throughout, including elements of the more indie mainstream US garage of the early 00s than what we're used to here. Live they were even better, drawing remarks comparing them to Rise Above alumni Gentlemans Pistols, with their infectious vibrancy and vigour. The Crystal Teardop's ...Is Forming is equally cool, with a direct 60s feel running through the whole thing, really excelling in the brief moments they bring a bit of heaviness in.

Elsewhere there was a plethora of music less acclimatised to our current sunnier times, some incredible death doom from around the globe to bring you down. Barcelona's Bocc have been worth following for a while now but have created their best yet on Promo 2025 (out on Night Terrors Records); the first track Ànima d'acer in particular a potent stew of death metal and sludge that sounds magnificently grimy, with a riff that comes in swinging midway that'll get you moving. From there, the EP seems to become even more turgid and swampy, similar in style to Fossilization. Then there's a South American Split between Mexico's Fumata and Costa Rica's VoidOath, the former deliciously dark doom pushing towards gothic and black metal, a superb exercise in overcast atmospherics, whilst the latter murky despite its bold production - ambitious doom that sounds glorious.

Staying in doom worlds, there have been a couple of welcome returns this past few weeks. Reading's Moss Eater have always had a bit of individuality about them, and it is once again evident on their new album The Closing Door, out on Coffin View Collective. They proclaim themselves post-doom, and that primarily manifests in patterns of doom interruptions of gentle openings, at time ethereal, mystical and enchanting, other where the flowers laid are then trampled, the medium an electric unbalance. There are comparisons to be made to early Dvne, others where it is practically cinematic, always very good. Moving across to Poland, old 9hz podcast faves L.o.W re-emerge with Burning the Cradle, raw and visceral sludge in its pure Crowbar-end form, six tracks anyone of the old Eyehategod school of sludge will lap up.

There were some real stand out psych releases of late, two of which I wanted to draw particular attention to. The first comes out of Tunisia, in the shape of Guros' Space Cake كعك الفضاء. Self described as a "Sound Design and Doom Metal Comic musical experience", this release was apparently conceived on a found stash of mushrooms and late night jam sessions, which might explain the comedic artwork, and definitely can be heard in this space rock, deep psych trip out that forms as two tracks over more than twenty minutes. It is deeply spacey and spaced out, doom and drone and psych led by synths into metronomic repetition that'll have Om fans weak at the knees. That rhythmical reiteration drives into your soul, pushing outwards joyously into cosmically mystical realms. Madmess, from Porto, released The Third Coming (out via gig.ROCKS!), which balances the lazy, hazy light air dreamy end of psychedelia with the more kinetic and deeper sounds of heavy psych, and when it clicks sounds effortlessly cool.

And then finally there's BulBul, long term - decades now I suspect - favourites of ours, since their days on Exile on Mainstream, still going and still sounding unlike anyone else. If you've not already had their pleasure, go check out their 2014 album Hirn Fein Hacken and revel in its danceable wackiness. They have a new EP out on Rock is Hell Records, Wagen Pause Unwohl, and it is uncategorisable yet as ever with a loose, and utterly cool swagger that is their trademark. The first track is superb, the middle indescribable and the closer a mad man's concoction of punk and noise rock and arty indie gone haywire. Gloriously madcap - never stop being you BulBul.