#evert snyman

[gbhbl]

Album Review: Evert Snyman – All Killer Filler (Mongrel Records)

Evert Snyman is a talented artist and that shows across this album. Hell, he even manages to make Rupert Holmes Escape – The Piña Colada Song somewhat bearable.

Evert Snyman, the South African rock musician and multi-instrumentalist renowned for his unparalleled musicality and captivating performances, will release his latest album, ‘All Killer Filler’ on the 28th July on Mongrel Records. It’s a covers album! Depending on your immediate reaction to that knowledge, you’re either going to have a blast or it’s your worst nightmare. Regardless, everyone who…

[metalshockfinland]

South Africa's EVERT SNYMAN Unleashes Second Single 'The Colour and The Shape' from Highly Anticipated Covers Album

South African musician, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Evert Snyman is set to shake up the music scene once again with the release of his second single, from the upcoming covers album All Killer Filler out on the 28th July via Mongrel Records. This highly anticipated project showcases Snyman’s immense talent and pays homage to the iconic bands and musicians that have influenced his musical…

[ghostcultmagazine]

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Evert Snyman Shares New Single/Video - “The End of Time”

EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE: Evert Snyman Shares New Single/Video – “The End of Time”

nor Ruff Majik guitarist/vocalist Evert Snyman’s has shared a new single from his upcoming new solo album. “The End of Time” is a rocking affair featuring his piano skills, that brings Evert out of the band setting and more to the fore as a solo entity.His new full-length album Hot Mess releases on the 22nd January 2021 via Mongrel Records. Watch the performance based video now! (more…)

[doomedandstoned]

South African Rebel Rousers Ruff Majik Return With Greater Madness!

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Christelle Duvenage Photography

Here’s a band I haven’t given near enough love to. RUFF MAJIK was one of the clear highlights of last year’s compilation, Doomed & Stoned in South Africa and we also had the opportunity to premiere a single just before the band jetted over to Europe to play with Colour Haze, My Sleeping Karma, and The Devil And The Almighty Blues. Johni Holiday (guitar, vox), Jimi Glass (bass guitar), and Benni Manchino (drums) have a very recognizable sound -- the mean sass of Mother Love Bone, the verve of Led Zeppelin, and the boldness of the Melvins, saddled to a very doomed, very stoned warthog drunk on marula fruit and busting straight out of a garage decorated with Electric Wizard, Fu Manchu, and High on Fire posters, somewhere in the vicinity of Pretoria.

Got the picture? No? Fine, call it sludge 'n' roll, then -- sludge 'n' roll with a devilish knack for mischief and an unbridled tendency to call it like you see it. Despite my difficulty in wrapping words around Ruff Majik's approach to music, what matters most is that they're likely to stand out in your mushrooming playlist, because they sound different. Different enough to make you stop what you're doing and ask, "Now who's that track by?"

Building on the momentum of last year's Seasons, Ruff Majik has really been on a roll. Now, they've conjured a new vision: 'Tårn' (2019). By the looks of Anni Buchner's soon to be revealed album art, it has something to do with a tower (and, in fact, that is what the word means in Norwegian). Today, Doomed & Stoned is taking you inside the castle, as it were, for a listen to the album's opening number "Schizophrenic." What's different about this song compared to others in their repertoire is Ruff Majik's decision to dabble in black metal, without ever becoming subservient to it.

As a matter of fact, that's pretty much the case with every genre the band traffics in. Be it stoner, sludge, or punk, these are like toys in the hands of three guys eager to take them out for a joy ride. There are moments when I could hear allusions to The Yardbirds and late-sixties folk rock -- you know, where you'd have a flute solo come in out of the blue. In "Schizophrenic," the guitars seem to take on the folksy character of the wooded instrument, with its whiz and warble. How ingeniously the concept of musical schizophrenia meshes with the lyrical content, too.

Make no mistake about it, though, I'm hanging around for the doom, boys, the doom! Take a song like "I'll Dig The Grave," which is as nasty and muddy as they come, featuring downtuned passages that are almost symphonic in concept. Or its successor, "Dread Breath," which at first blush feels like an old fashioned Soundgarden hoe-down (like "Ty Cobb"), but after it does its stomping, settles down as low to the earth as you could wish for. Ditto to the closer, "Seasoning The Witch," perhaps the dirgiest of doomers on this thirty-six minute spin. Like each of the six songs before it, this charms with an odd, alluring appeal.

I'm beginning to pick up on a distinctive sound and style belonging to Ruff Majik and them alone. Sound engineer Evert Snyman did a stand-up job of capturing the vibe honestly at Backline Studios in Johannesburg. Tårn was mastered in my own backyard of Portland, Oregon by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, who succeeded in bringing out the nuances, without spoiling its grungy sheen. Keep your eyes peeled for the release on May 3rd via Lay Bare Recordings, with pre-orders happening here.

And now to the premiere before us, the first single from Tårn, the aforementioned "Schizophrenic." The music video was shot and edited by Ruff Majik's own Ben Manchino. "Inspired by black metal, Black Sabbath and psychedelia," he tells us, "the video is a visual trip through VHS glitches and over-saturated colours." Frontman Johni Holiday chimes in: "This video was inspired by our love for Immortal, classic black metal videos, and the psychedelic look and feel of the pioneers and current tastemakers in the stoner rock and doom metal scene."

As for the song itself, that links directly Ruff Majik's muse, Black Sabbath. Here the band reimagines the seminal "Paranoid" as a kind of "fuzz-drenched speed metal frenzy, ending in a riff of pure, bleak doom, with some very dirty doom breakdowns at the very end of it." Pay attention to the lyrics, for they are even more "frenzied and terrified than its inspiration, verging on the edge of schizophrenia," the band explains, adding that it is "an ode to Venom as much as it is to Sabbath.” Sounds like just what the psychiatrist ordered to treat the insanity of my week!

If you dig it, show the band some love and pick up the single on Bandcamp, Deezer, iTunes, or any of your other favorite watering holes.

Give ear...

Lyrics

Hay you looking into my eyes, won't you lend me a hand? Hay you looking in through the mirror, won't you understand? I'm losing my mind, and I don't have the time to bury myself, but I don't see nobody else.

Every morning all I hear is doom. She asks me: "Who the hell are you talking to?" I don't know. Have I taken too much, am I out of touch? I can't keep the ghosts away. No it seems they're here to stay.

Hay you looking into my eyes, won't you lend me a hand? Hay you looking in through the mirror, won't you understand? I'm losing my mind, and I don't have the time to bury myself, but I don't see nobody else.

I've seen it all. The churches burn, the cities fall. And when the serpents came they took my mind away. She says: "Your fever's high, have you been dreaming again?" I said: "Lock me away, I believe I've seen the end."

Hay you looking into my eyes, won't you lend me a hand? Hay, you looking in through the mirror, won't you understand? I'm losing my mind, and I don't have the time to bury myself, but I don't see nobody else.

Hay you looking into my eyes, won't you understand?

Christelle Duvenage Photography

Some Buzz

In a small, secluded mining town in rural South Africa, three friends heard the call of the void, and spat fuzz back at it. Thus, Ruff Majik was born, and the adventure of sex, drugs and mostly rock ‘n roll began.

Ruff Majik set sail to Pretoria, South Africa, where they’ve become infamous for their lively shows and aggressive on stage persona. With their brand of what they call “stoner rock/sludge ‘n roll” they move between slow grooves and breakneck speeds in the blink of an eye, with live shows being described as ‘whiplash inducing.’

Consisting of three members, Johni Holiday, Jimmy Glass and Ben Manchino make up The Atomic Trinity, the relentless noise machine that is Ruff Majik (blessed be the name). Ruff Majik is a power trio, a stoner juggernaut, and they bring good times with them wherever they go.

The Bear by Ruff Majik

The Fox by Ruff Majik

The Swan by Ruff Majik

The band surfaced in 2015 with the release of their first six-track, 'The Bear.' This got them lots of attention from reviewers all over the world. They quickly followed up with 'The Fox' in 2016, that got them into Classic Rock Magazine with the song "Sodoom and Gomorrah," as well as 100, 000 views on the YouTube of the full album -- and counting.

In 2017, Ruff Majik rounded off the animal trilogy with 'The Swan,' which introduced a heavier side to their sound previously unheard, but very much welcomed by fans. Swiftly after this release, they got to work on the follow up album 'Seasons' (2018), which was released in four segments ('The Hare and the Hollow,' 'A Finch in a Cherry Tree,' 'A Dragon and His Hoard,' and 'The Stag in the Leaves') -- one per season, over the stretch of a year.

Seasons by Ruff Majik

Now there's more coming your way, and it's going to be heavier than ever before. The band are very happy to announce their signing to Dutch label Lay Bare Recordings for new album 'Tårn' (2019), set for release on the 3rd of May. Désirée Hanssen from Lay Bare Recordings is excited about the partnership, “You want magic? We'll give you Majik! Lay Bare Recordings is ecstatic to expand the Lay Bare family, with the power trio Ruff Majik! And let us tell you, their music will excite all your senses! Pure, unstoppable power!”

Guitarist and vocalist Johni Holiday adds, “Ruff Majik are extremely proud and excited to announce that we will be joining the Lay Bare family for the release of our new album, 'Tårn'! Lay Bare have been putting out exciting high-quality records for the last few years and we’re very happy to finally join in on the action!"

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[runningwolf]

Evert Snyman releases video for "Dumb and Dead" https://bit.ly/3dPiqj4

[gojonnygogogo]

"OPEN MIC - Pollinator Interview on SAfm" by POLLINATOR

[iheartgaything]

Put a coin in my slot, tell me what you got!

[doomedandstoned]

South Africa’s Mad God Face Off With Devils In Bruising New Doomer

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

MAD GOD is a hell of a name for a band. It's brash, frightening and, if there is a God, probably true. Literature is replete with tales of madness, from throne room to darkest cavern. After all, what could be more frightening than insanity? Worse still, what if God were bonkers, too? It's an idea pregnant with possibilities and this week, the Johannesburg trio of Tim Harbour (guitar, vox), Evert Snyman (bass), and Patrick Stephansen (drums) gives birth to another album of vignettes from our mad, mad world.

'Grotesque and Inexorable' (2018), besides being a vocabulary expanding mouthful, will have fans of H.P. Lovecraft whipping out their magnifying glasses, looking for signs his influence throughout. What's behind those glowing eyes? Is that perhaps a ritual knife? And what of that ghastly cephalopodic tail? It all beckons us to venture closer, to stroll deeper into the bush. Only here in nature's primitive darkness can we see clearly.

This is not an interpretive dance through Lovecraft's greatest hits, however. What Mad God have assembled is essentially a horror anthology, each of its six chapters bearing witness to some monstrosity -- real or imagined. All of them are unimaginably terrifying.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." (H.P. Lovecraft)

The parade of deplorables kicks off in the cemetery, where apparently if there is no rest for the wicked, then neither will there be respite the just. "Haunting the Graves of the Unhallowed" is like a nod Unhallowed Graves and perhaps The Reluctant Dead by the pioneering author of African horror, Nuzo Onoh. Mad God bring a Goyaesque gravity to the song, with the witchy metallic grit of early Yob or the bitter-sweet ire of Trouble -- all caged with the expansive song structure made a staple of the genre by the godfathers of doom, Black Sabbath. That's for those of you reaching for a point of reference in this slow-burning, bubbling cauldron of toxic stew. It won't take long for you to acclimate to the flavor, and with repeated spins you'll be easily picking up on the Mad God distinctives.

If the first track draws upon the supernatural, "The DeZalze Horror" is grounded in grizzly physical reality. In January of 2015, the papers greeted South Africans with the strange story of a millionaire and his family massacred at the DeZalze Golf Estate golf resort outside of Cape Town. Henri van Breda, was the apparent lone survivor and claimed amnesia about the whole event. He evaded justice for a year-and-a-half, until all evidence in the investigation confirmed that the 20-year old Henri had indeed wielded an axe against his father, mother, brother, and sister (the latter being the sole survivor).

Mad God's mean, sludgy swagger makes this track a fitting bedfellow with Church of Misery's bevy of serial killers. Tim's guitar chugs along like someone pacing hallways, Evert and Patrick's rhythm section makes me think the bump and drag of the axe's head along the floor, while Henri laments the shocking outcome of his brutal rage. A bluesy, fuzzy interlude brings us the 911 call, and the drums pound like sunken heartbeat, resigned to the awfulness and permanence of one's decision.

Last month, the band chose "I Created God" as the album's first single. "This song was written after watching a Charles Manson documentary, following his death in 2017," Tim Harbour explains. Though Manson remains the perennial muse of songwriters, he hastens to add: "This song does not condone the actions of the cult leader, but rather delves into the psyche and motives of both him and his followers around the time of the murders that took place in 1969." As one might expect, the lyrics aren't pretty, underlying the band's thesis that despite the beauty and good in the world, the ugliness of evil is never far behind and is often three steps ahead. Unlike the notorious fascination of Uncle Acid & the deadbeats for Charlie, Mad God's musical characterization of Manson and his Helter Skelter scenario is somber, with his mad ramblings echoing through the song's final stretch.

"The Crawling Chaos" follows, a reference to the short story written by Lovecraft, but based upon a dream of a companion, poet Winifred V. Jackson. A hazy, Alice in Wonderland ambience opens this opium fever dream, in which an accidental overdose leads to a misshapen landscape mired by 50 foot waves, outsized flora, and bizarre trip beyond the Milky Way. The song is perhaps emblematic of the horrors lying dormant within each of our mind, not to mention the subtext of addiction.

"No Prayers, No Fires" is my favorite of the lot, for it led me down another fascinating rabbit trail. This one took me all the way to one Herbert George Wells -- yes, the self-same H.G. -- who wrote a non-fiction book speculating about the future of society. Central to his book, 'The Future in America: A Search After Realities' (1906), a travelogue of impressions from his first visit to the States, was the Oneida Community of New York. Once hailed as a triumph of human cooperation and communal living, there were now "no prayers, no fires upon the deserted altars of Oneida any more forever..." Their leader, a cultic figure by the name of John Humphrey Noyes, wanted to bring about Christ's fabled millennial kingdom (which was all but an obsession of 19th century religionists), but the enterprise fell upon scandal and financial ruin. The evil groove of this song is key to its success and the band is in fine form for the duration.

At last comes "Wild Hunt," which returns us to the spirit realm for a romp through the underworld, with faintly human apparitions fastened upon their ghostly steeds in pursuit some unknown prey. Legend has it that those among us unfortunate enough to see a vision of the Wild Hunt will be met with sure calamity. It's not a fast song, as we've become conditioned to by bands that tend to go nuts with the "wild" part. Mad God's take is, in fact a sad one -- more in the spirit of Reagers-era Saint Vitus or more recently, Pallbearer. These departed spirits are "bound by eternity" to chase after desires they could never be satisfied in their former lives, nor in this pale existence. It's a tasteful conclusion to the album, though it does leave one with a feeling of melancholy.

Mad God's Grotesque and Inexorable drops this weekend and can be pre-ordered here. Of all the surprises we've been treated to in 2018, this is perhaps the grimmest and most tantalizing -- not unlike a Lovecraftian monster.

Give ear...

Grotesque and Inexorable by Mad God

Some Buzz

'Grotesque and Inexorable' (2018) is the 2nd full length release by Johannesburg doom metal band, Mad God. Mad God was formed in 2014 by Tim Harbour, Tim Harrison and Patrick Stephansen with the intention of bringing doom metal to South Africa, as it is one of the most underrepresented metal genres in the country. 2015 saw Mad God release their first split, 'Unholy Rituals' alongside Johannesburg stoner act Goat Throne. The following years were good for doom metal, the Temple of Doom shows put on in Joburg became a regular event for stoner, psychedelic and doom metal music showcasing some of South Africa’s best talent such as Ruff Majik, STRAGE, Corax, Pollinator, The Makeovers and many more.

In 2017, bassist Tim Harrison left the band and was replaced by Jarred Beaton and in July that year, Mad God released their first full length album titled 'Tales of a Sightless City,' which gained a fair amount of traction among online stoner and doom circles such as Stoned Meadow of Doom and MrDoom666 on YouTube as well as receiving favourable reviews from popular review sites such as Angry Metal Guy and Doombringer. That same year, Mad God did their first tour to Cape Town and staged a show with The League of Doom (Cape Town’s very own doom and stoner event organisers) as well as played at Krank’d Up Festival alongside acts such as Vulvodinya, OHGOD, Intervals, and Memphis May Fire. Shortly after, the tour the band took a hiatus to focus on writing new material and bassist Jarred Beaton was replaced by Pollinators lead singer and guitarist, Evert Snyman.

'Grotesque and Inexorable' is an exploration into new musical territory for Mad God. After the release of 'Tales of a Sightless City,' Mad God have been aiming to evolve their sound to something darker and more unique.

This album draws on much gloomier themes and the lyrics reflect this turn. The music itself is both dirtier and more progressive and as a band we tried to introduce a wider variety of influences including death and black metal as well as more traditional and heavy metal sounds, even including some '70s progressive rock.

The album title also reflects this change in sound. In other words, "disgusting and cannot be stopped." The band adds, "As Lovecraftian fan boys we had to throw the word grotesque in somewhere!"

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[runningwolf]

Evert Snyman releases eclectic new album: "Hot Mess" https://rwrant.co.za/evert-snyman-hot-mess/?feed_id=5369

[runningwolf]

Evert Snyman releases new single: "Operation Human Shield" https://tinyurl.com/y2f729h4

[gojonnygogogo]

"SHIMMERING GOLD" by POLLINATOR

[gojonnygogogo]

"A TO B" by POLLINATOR

[gojonnygogogo]

"POUR ON THE HONEY" by POLLINATOR

[gojonnygogogo]

"TRESSPASSES" by POLLINATOR

[gojonnygogogo]

"HACKSAW" by POLLINATOR

[gojonnygogogo]

"LOST IN THE ETHER" by POLLINATOR