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Formed in 2022 in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A. by 7 music school nerds, DOOM GONG has made a name for themselves internationally with their own home-baked genre, Denim Psych – a hodgepodge of psychedelic rock, jazz fusion, bedroom pop, lo-fi, contemporary classical music, as well as blood, sweat, and a lot of denim.

Having only released their first two LP’s in 2023 (DOOM GONG and Dream Behemoth), DOOM GONG has quickly become a mainstay of the psych scene in the U.S. and abroad, performing their enigmatic and seamless live shows alongside the likes of Amyl and the Sniffers, The Black Angels, BADBADNOTGOOD, Allah Las, King Buffalo, Bass Drum of Death, Death Valley Girls, HOLY WAVE, Gustaf, Ron Gallo…In 2024, DOOM GONG launched their international presence, completing two summer tours consisting of 24 shows across the eastern United States and Canada with immense reception. Soon after, the denim assemblage partnered with Romanus Records to produce vinyl of their debut album – all presses were sold out within an hour of its release. [ed note: I have a copy, just haven’t featured it here yet]

Side A of Megagong is heavy on the dreamy: synth-drenched and swirly, see especially “The Perilous Rise.’ Side B is distinctively heavier: one of my favorites on Megagong is not all dreamy (though it has moments): the single “Annihilator” which was released before the LP and currently the only track with any kind of link (I’m guessing until tomorrow) is mostly hard hard heavy prog synth with glimpses of Motörhead and Sabbath.  As the title suggests “Spiral Dance of Imminent Doom” is another hard and heavy rocker (with proggy synths!) which is also supremely ass-shakey. Slightly less heavy and profoundly more frenetic is the excellent title track “Megagong.” Brilliant and otherworldly.

Doom Gong is currently on tour (not in the upper Midwest unfortunately, but I begged them to put Milwaukee on their circuit next time ’round) – this is one of those bands that you must see live to fully experience the intelligent insanity of their music.

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The band itself seems to view their record through a prog-rock lens that’s got 50ish years of blurry goo smeared on it, never cleaned from back in the era of the 70’s epic concept album. From an article on Nuvo, frontman Corey Standifer says of the plot of Lady of Many Faces (inspired by keyboardist Brooke Rice’s dream of a three-faced woman), “There’s the Wizard, who is unfortunately in his own prison. He’s pure, but he doesn’t know it yet. Same with the ‘Hidden Hermit of the Hills.’ He’s a total nomad of sorts, who lives by his own book. But the Lady [of Many Faces] needs him in order to fulfill this prophecy of good and spreading your true potential. The ‘Doom Tomb Giant,’ however, is wanting to take that away from them. The song ‘Phantom Erasion’ is essentially the concept of wiping away all the negative forces within your life and really trying to tackle that as best as you can. The Lady has many faces, so [that equates to] many characters and many concepts. But she represents really digging inside of your inner self and exploiting your selfless soul.”

Here’s the entire album, performed in order at their record release show in Indy in November 2024.

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WMSE’s Local/Live shows are a mix of music and interview so the band got a chance to discuss the origins of Lords of Data. They initially wrote the album in the deep woods back in 2019 with the intention of releasing the record, as Calliope, in 2020. Well, we all know how that turned out. As the pandemic dragged on and on and they continued to write, they realized that the “60’s funhouse psychedelic” sound that the name Calliope implied no longer described the evolution of their music. Heavily (heavily) influenced by Dune (ie the tracks “Navigator,” “God Emperor“) and other works of sci-fi, they rebranded as Astral Hand and it fits their vibe completely. Melt-your-face hallucinogenic jams that swirl in the cosmos, both live and on wax, Lords of Data is a trip. My top track is “Universe Machine,” a thundering, beat-driven (courtesy of drummer Dan Dahl) mind-fuck’d ass-shaker that had me grooving at the show. “End of Man” is another killer head-banging rocker. Other great picks are “Contact” and the epic “Psychedelicide.” The Local/Live show is their last for awhile as the bassist’s wife just had a baby (or is about to??) but I’ll be looking forward to catching a complete set from Astral Hand soon.

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Cadets is Spirit Mother’s first LP and it doesn’t look like any of the band members have been in other groups, at least after an non-exhaustive glance on Discogs. They released a live record in 2021 that has several of the songs from Cadet called Live in the Mojave Desert Volume 3. That record is part of series on Giant Rock Records, all recorded live and filmed in the natural amphitheater of California’s Mojave Desert and backed by a visual performance from the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show. Other bands appearing on the series include Earthless, Nebula, Mountain Tamer and Stöner.

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