music 2024: TOP 4 non-album releases

Same rules as in previous years: Only releases I own in physical format. No re-issues, no studio or live albums. The only albums allowed in this category are split releases. Other than that singles, EPs and compilations were considered.

Then why such a short list? Well, of course I could have crammed more artists into this post, but I'm just trying to keep these rankings proportional. And I simply didn't buy very much music meeting the specific criteria in question. So with that in mind please be content with this small but exquisite selection of my...

TOP 4 non album releases 2024:

1. EAGLE TWIN & THE OTOLITH - Legends of the Desert Vol. 4
   
   
   

   What an awesome split! Heavy Desert Sludge duo Eagle Twin crunches your bones and scatters the remains in the sea of sand. From there the violins and voices of The Otolith pick them up and blow them through the spheres with arguably the strongest songs since they arose from the Doom of their former band SubRosa.
   
   
   
   
   
2. CHELSEA WOLFE - Unbound EP
   
   
   

   Only a guitar or piano and the magical lure of her voice. Anything from Chelsea Wolfe is strong, but in this constellation, reduced to the very essence, the Goth singer / songwriter is close to unbeatable.
   She also deserves credit for not just copying her album songs in acoustic form, but actually finding very distinct alternate arrangements which work just as great.
   Even though this beautiful EP is quite short it surprisingly contains two versions of "Whispers In The Echo Chambers"; the second one is just clad as a cover version with title and lyrics lent from Spiritbox.
   
   
   
   
   
3. KING DUDE - Songs of the 1940s - volume 3 & 4
   
   
   

   Déjà vu! More raw recordings of eight very old Country songs, presented on two 7" records in a gatefold cover in an embossed box. It looks as great as the previous double release of this series and the songs are just as compelling, too. Strummed acoustic guitars, ghostly organs and electric sprinkles, the Dude's raspy sonorous, but occasionally also yodeling voice - that's all it takes to create a perfect example of imperfect perfection.
   
   
   
   
   
4. TEUFELSKELLER / TORU & CR3C3II3 - Split
   
   
   

   This split tape is a satisfyingly glitchy chaotic double assault of apocalyptic Avantgarde. Side A belongs to the brutish and relentless "Tour de Force" of exile Russian trio Teufelskeller. On the even crazier side B French Experimental Metal maniacs Toru are teaming up with Noise artist CR3C3II3. And no matter if "Rattles Are Out" or "Rattles Are Back", one thing is for sure: Rattles are indeed completely bonkers.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

favorite MUSIC 2024 - all my lists:

TOP 24 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues

TOP 4 non-album releases   |   TOP 24 live shows

EAGLE TWIN & THE OTOLITH - Legends of the Desert Vol. 4

Of course attending and reviewing live shows is great and all, but damn, I'm falling behind with releases I want to write about! Yet again.

Well here's something I only very recently became aware of and had to order immediately. Because who doesn't love a great Doom Metal split LP?

EAGLE TWIN & THE OTOLITH - Legends of the Desert Vol. 4 (Copper Nugget vinyl LP) (2024)

Luckily I didn't have to order this fourth part of a split series from the New Mexican label Desert Records from overseas, because they offered a beautiful variant for Europe, too.

The two tracks on its A side belong to a group unfamiliar to me until now, the super sludgy amplifier worship Doom duo Eagle Twin. And yes, these two dudes look exactly as much as American truckers as the name suggests. Their extremely boosted brand of Blues with many other influences, while keeping an uncompromising focus on the power of the riff, exudes strong Yob vibes more than once. The raw vocal style, which sometimes almost slides off into throat singing territory, undoublty is a part of that. And I'm absolutely here for it!  

The reason I even checked this record out however is of course The Otolith, the Doom Metal band with two violins and multiple vocalists from Salt Lake City, featuring four former members of the legendary SubRosa. Even though their 2022 debut album "Folium Limina" undoubtly is great, I had some issues with it, which were mainly routed in me just missing the contributions of Rebecca Vernon.
By now however the desert dust has settled a bit. Vernon powerfully came back with the debut of her own new band The Keening and that also helped me to appreciate "Folium Limina" more for what it is than mourn what it was missing for me at first.

And what about the two tracks on this split? Both "Crossway" and "Phosphene Dream" are at least on par with the greatest songs from the album - maybe this even is the group's best material so far.
Doom Metal just doesn't get more epic, crushingly heavy and emotional at the same time than this. It feels like The Otolith have stepped up in several aspects, with the most important one just being confidence. It shines through especially in the arrangements and the harmony vocals of Sarah Pendleton and Kim Cordray. And I'm sure it helped that live bassist Matt Brotherton is also a fully involved band member now.

Guys and girls, if you keep up this level for your next album, it will be spectacular!
Just like this split actually already is, thanks to the awesome contributions of both bands and the consistent killer production, as all four tracks have been recorded and mixed by The The Otolith's drummer Andy Patterson in his studio.

THE OTOLITH - Folium Limina

I don't appreciate the debut album of The Otolith, successors of Salt Lake City doomers SubRosa, as much as it deserves. At least yet. Maybe it will even need another release for me to get there.
The good news however is that "Folium Limina" is definitely slowly growing on me, so next year I will love this more than I do now.

THE OTOLITH - Folium Limina (transparent orange 2LP with screenprint on side D) (2022)

My struggle with this album is a classic one - and it's almost a little embarrassing, because I have been the musician in a band that disbanded and carried on with a new name and one member less myself more than once. But it is like it is, so let's dissect this a bit:

During the recording of this album The Otolith were four out of five members of SubRosa. The fantastic sludgy doom band with the signature feature of two electric violins had been the child of singer / guitarist Rebecca Vernon. The vocals, which had always been delivered by multiple members are now carried by Kim Cordray (formerly Pack) and Sarah Pendleton, whose voices melt together just as smoothly and harmonious as their strings, and bassist Levi Hanna still unleashes an enormous Cult of Luna bellow. And it's all great! But... well, let me weave the but into a point for point competition between the two bands:

Name: SubRosa, The Otolith. Both band names don't tell you much on their own, but I'm going with The Otolith, which seems a little more memorable and exciting on the tongue.

Album title: "Folium Limina" is Latin. And if any Latin expert gets to read it there will probably three mistakes in those two words - because that always happens when rock bands use Latin. SubRosa on the other hand had "No Help For The Mighty Ones", "More Constant Than The Gods" and my favorite, the resigned "For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages". All much more evocative. Point for SubRosa.

Artwork: The cover is there and there is something on it. But it looks nice and is certainly more exciting than the front of the last SubRosa studio album (which overall still had great design) or the "Live At Roadburn" release. And it also looks beautiful in combination with the orange vinyl and the black screen print on the music-less side D. (see pictures below!)

Poetry: Lyrically both bands are good. And since they always credited the lyrics to the whole band it's hard to tell how big Rebecca Vernon's part in this has been. But what I miss the most now is her part in delivering them. When I listen to "Folium Limina" as a non-native English speaker, I have to read the lyric sheet to be invested in any of the lyrics. Nothing stands out automatically in a way that makes me go damn! And SubRosa had a lot of those moments, where Vernon threw some incredibly bleak or strong line at you in her aggressive, sharply pronounced vocal style and it really took you aback and made you much more invested in the whole.

And as much as The Otolith are trying their best, the band just misses the substitute for that particular raw tone I loved so much, even though the songwriting on this album is fantastic and sometimes actually expanding the formula in ways which probably wouldn't have found their way onto a SubRosa release. But being so fond of Vernon's harsh voice, I can't help but still experience a lot of this as the band minus front woman situation it technically is.

One way to avoid this effect would be to just sound less like SubRosa in general, but that is illusionary, because the signature power violin duo is such a unique front and center feature of the sound. And of course it's awesome, so you don't want to lose that!
Yet what The Otolith could do is to crank up other elements. Rebecca Vernon may be a great singer, performer, composer, multi-instrumentalist - but she's far from being a virtuosa on the guitar, an irony which she even pointed out herself in interviews.

On "Folium Limina" the bassist also plays the guitar parts, but keeps the six strings mainly on riff duty, just like it was in the former band. Meanwhile however The Otolith have recruited a new member to play bass and Levi Hanna has fully switched to guitar. My hope for the next release is that there will be more focus and variety in the guitar sector, so that - also with the additional creative input of the new member plus the passing of time until then - there will just be more stuff making me forgot what I am missing so much now.

Despite all my lament "Folium Limina" is an outstanding, crushingly heavy and heavenly beautiful Doom Metal record, only surpassed by few other genre releases of 2022, one which not many other constellations of artists could have made. And drummer Andy Petterson again has done an excellent job of producing it.

It's just very tough to follow the monumentally high standards they have set themselves before. You might have suspected by now that "For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages" simply is one of my favorite Doom Metal albums of all time. Never before and after has such a ton of emotions been delivered in a comparable wayAnd that's probably something which you can't just repeat on cue, no matter if you are The Rosa or SubOtolith.

But then being among the best of the very best is an unfair expectation for any album, so there should be no reason not to thoroughly enjoy "Folium Limina". Give me a couple of weeks or months and I'll be there, promised!     

WOMEN OF DOOM (compilation)

It's not often that I talk about compilations, but for the following collection I will gladly make an exception. I stumbled over it through my love for the disbanded sludgorchestral doom giant(esse)s SubRosa and the doom'n'roll couple Year Of The Cobra.

The title which the New Mexican label Blues Funeral Recordings found for this collection doesn't leave a lot of questions concerning the content. In their own words "Women of Doom" is meant to be a celebration of "badass female artists whose creativity and heaviness has been blowing our minds and our speakers for years."

WOMEN OF DOOM (compilation) (download) (2020)

Derived from the two aforementioned bands there are three tracks, where I could already put a face to the artist's name.
Those are Amy Tung Barrysmith, bass player and singer of Year Of The Cobra, whose solo composition "Broken" is a mellow yet dark ethereal piano ballad, SubRosa's front woman Rebecca Vernon with her new project The Keening, and the complete other four fifths of the band as The Otolith.

The latter start their track "Bone Dust" with an intro (taking in fact half of the song), in which the combination of simple clean guitar and the twin violins of Kim Pack and Sarah Pendleton leaves no doubt about where they are coming from. Neither do the slow stomping heaviness nor the familiar vocals which follow. And yes, it's good to hear them again, even though drummer Andy Petterson also has that exciting Insect Ark gig going on. (Damn, that duo is almost missing here.)

The Keening on the other hand omits Vernon's former role as guitarist and vocalist with a purely instrumental, beautiful piano piece.

SubRosa's footprint on this sampler still remains huge though, as several of the other tracks evoke their memory. "A Curse To Be Broken" by Besvärjelsen is very close to their style, while Doomstress Alexis mixes strings with more traditional Sabbathisms and vocals akin to Johanna Sadonis (Lucifer) or the grand Devilmother Jinx Dawson of Coven.

The same description almost works for Deathbell, even though their song sounds quite different alone by adding a clerical horror flick (and at the same time 70s rock) vibe with a swirling organ.

The opener "Astral Hand" by Heavy Temple is pure Candlemass worship, even down to the voice of singer Nighthawk.

Frayle's "Marrow" is clearly influenced by Chelsea Wolfe with its ghostly vocals and the heaviness of our mysterious queen's "Hiss Spun" album.

Finally there is Mlny Parsonz, singer of Royal Thunder, who contributes two songs to the compilation. Musically she gives me hints of doomish country (or let's call it uhm... blues), while as a singer she delivers the most earnest, honest and touching performances of the whole bunch.

I'll leave it to you to pick your own favorites, but what I can surely say is that all ten tracks are without a doubt good or even great stuff, and that this release also works as a whole.

"Women of Doom" is available on vinyl and CD from the US or the UK - or for import postage savers like me as a digital copy/stream on Bandcamp.