Incoming Cerebral Overdrive
Le Stelle: A Voyage Adrift
Supernatural Cat Records

If Italy were to have their own version of Mastodon, I suppose Incoming Cerebral Overdrive would be it. The band’s fourth album, Le Stelle: A Voyage Adrift, is jammed ear to rear with quirky time changes, intrepid riffing, and heavy bullishness, making it a contemporary yet progressive blend of math rock, hardcore, and sludge. While it can be said that Le Stelle delivers relentless, crashing waves of metal, the perfect accompaniment to the album’s lyrical concept based on the discovery of a sea-stranded man’s diary, it actually feels more like ICO are on a flat-out hyper-drive ride through planetary mines. The album’s overall spacey vibe, especially on the doomed-out cosmic trip of eleven minute closer “Rigel,” may no doubt be owed to the composition and recording help of Ufomammut’s Urlo and Poia, but they, like the Malleus Rock Art Lab cover, are just a nationalistic pleasantry; ICO is the archetype ambassador for the insane super kill.

Listen to “Bellatrix” from Le Stelle: A Voyage Adrift!

Naam
The Ballad of the Starchild
Tee Pee

Rising from out of the burning coals that is Brooklyn’s red hot rock n’ roll scene, Naam is a psychedelic temptress, a beckoning apparition, whose cross-eyed appeal grows more alluring on their latest, The Ballad of the Starchild. This five-song EP (which can also be found to contain the suffix Movements I-V) is an acid rock journey into the hazy orange aether, a destination experience for mind, body, and soul. Like Emil Amos’ bands all rolled into one, the EP’s first three tracks (“Sentry of Skies,” “Lands Unknown,” “History’s Son”) boast an exotic strangeness and blow holy smoke, while it’s the addition of fourth member John Weingarten on keys, synth, and organ that adds another dimension to the band’s hypnotic pull and carries the heavy, fuzzy load of “The Starchild” and provides the lonely space drift of “End Theme”. The Ballad of the Starchild may not contain the bone-rattling kraut and stoner jam damage that 2009′s self-titled full-length debut did, but it does offer up plenty of transcendent doom bliss and will take you to the furthest of places in less than thirty minutes.

Check out a video of Naam performing (a much shorter version of) “The Starchild” from The Ballad of the Starchild!

Caustic Casanova
Someday You Will Be Proven Correct
Mad Love Records

Caustic Casanova are tricky business. A quick perusal of their physical product and you might think, like I did, that you’re not going to have time for these noisy scholars and their songs with titles like “Your Spirit Festooned on the Bedposts,” “There is No Need for Grammar on the Moon,” and “A Campfire of Your Own Awe,” and generally you don’t, but sometimes you gotta give some geeks a chance (because, like me, you are one too, deep down). Thankfully, this Washington trio has a set of balls on ‘em and aren’t afraid to heavy up their sweater n’ corduroy nerd rock, and so their sophomore album, Someday You Will Be Proven Correct, while strongly influenced by the hipster alt-rock of the 90s, is much more than college circuit fare. While opener “The Space Needle” might remind you of a more aggressive Sonic Youth, it’s the mid-album combination of “Short Commute, Live Forever” and “Infinite Happiness” that steals the show, a couple of melodic bulldozers in the vein of the Melvins, Torche, and Helms Alee. The album eventually winds down with some uber-indie incandescence (“Bulwark” and “The Unfathomable Heart”) and an experimental distraction (“17:59″), but when it’s all said and done, Caustic Casanova find a way to pack quite a punch into their pretension, ensuring that Someday You Will Be Proven Correct is good enough for girls with bangs and greasy beards like me.

Check out the video for “Short Commute, Live Forever” from Someday You Will Be Proven Correct!