DISASTROID Reveal Striking 4th Full-Length, ‘Garden Creatures’
~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~
By Billy Goate
Get ready for full-on galactic riffing, energetic rhythms, with moments of interstellar insanity. This is DISASTROID and their latest record, 'Garden Creatures' (2024) -- a swirling blend of colors drawn from a dynamic palette of psychedelic, grunge, desert, noise, and math rock influences.
This fourth full-length outing from the SFO band begins with the title track and is presented with rumbling force and jagged rhythms juxtaposed with clean, earnest singing and smooth melodic lines from frontman/guitarist Enver Koneya. At times the vocals soar like the pleas of some jerky cosmonaut thrust into the unknown vastness of outer space. Braden McGraw's drums thunder and churn like the roaring ocean. Travis Williams' bass is warm and pulsating.
Enver's guitar and Travis' bass trade barbs on "Stucco Nowhere," an ode to being stuck in a life of sameness and misery ("burning out within your head"). The singing builds to a crescendo, perhaps summoning sheer force of will to shake off the spell of mediocrity. There are some dreamy vocal harmonies that haunt overslept dreams, and finally a cry of frustration and despair to be set free from the shackles of it all.
"Mama says I need some help," laments Enver in "Figurative Object." The guitars chug with rocketing force, but often enter the realm of disorienting dissonance. This tendency towards the strange and uncanny continues in "Backwards Sleeping" and feels like a night of tossing and turning ("losing sleep for all that we have done"), complete with trippy guitar effects, rhythmic jolts, and ghostly droning.
"24" is fuzzy as all get-out, with screeching guitar hooks, unconventional rhythmic structure, and a misty hue of sadness in the vocals. Then "Hold Me Wrong" is like a fever dream, with a persistent bass groove, strumming and picking on the guitar, and exhausted pleas to "hold me tight, hold me right."
The penultimate song, "Light 'Em Up" is like a hallucination straight out of Blade Runner, with sounds and samples flying about us like fugitive visions. This is another where the bass is so integral to giving us a feeling of movement and cohesiveness in this shapeshifting world. The drumming here, as throughout the record, is stalwart and determined, whilst the riffmaking ranges from raucous to delirious. The record ends on a short banger, a riotous number "Jack Londonin'" with punk, noise, and math overtones.
Disastroid's Garden Creatures was recorded and produced by Billy Anderson and is releasing on Heavy Psych Sounds this weekend, February 23rd, on a spectacular variety of vinyl variants (get it here). Stick it on a playlist with The Melvins, Red Fang, Fatso Jetson, Kook, and Soundgarden.
Give ear...
SOME BUZZ
San Francisco veterans Disastroid have been serving up sludgy, grunge-infused stoner rock for the better part of a decade now, refining a sound that weaves heavy riffs together with angular guitar lines, odd time signatures, and hazy walls of fuzz. As influenced by 90's noise rock as they are by modern psych, doom, and post-metal, Disastroid delivers thick, satisfying stoner rock stomp while also embracing layers of noise, tripped-out feedback, and unpredictable song structures.
The current lineup of singer/guitarist Enver Koneya, bassist Travis Williams, and drummer Braden McGraw coalesced in 2011. They’re united by a desire to make heavy music that's loose instead of mechanical, a motivation to explore methods that make them sound bigger and more varied than a traditional rock trio, and a shared affection for the Amphetamine Reptile back-catalog. Thematically, their songs steer clear of genre cliches, touching instead on scattered aspects of modern life: technology fatigue, immigration, nuclear deterrence, the monotony of work, the existential dread of aging. Despite the subject matter, Disastroid never take themselves too seriously, injecting their live shows with an infectious sense of humor and their songwriting with math-rock quirks.
Disastroid’s latest outing, Garden Creatures, is a record about the darkness in the hidden corners of suburban landscapes — sinister overgrown gardens, secret collections kept in basements, the crime just beneath the surface, the pervasive loneliness under a veneer of normalcy. Accordingly, it’s a dark and atmospheric record, trading the stripped-down approach of 2020’s Mortal Fools for a thicker, heavier, and more layered sound. Legendary producer Billy Anderson (Sleep, Melvins, Neurosis) builds mixes that range from dark and dreamy to a thick, sludgy crunch, slowly pulling the listener through a range of sounds and textures, making sure things stay interesting. Singer/guitarist Enver Koneya's vocals are soulful and sometimes haunting, drifting above Disastroid’s characteristically off-kilter, grunge-influenced riffs.
Follow The Band
Get Their Music
