TETRAO UROGALLUS – Gulo Gulo (2023, LP Sulatron Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Sulatron Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, 180 gram, 500 copies

Release Date: 14 Apr 2023

Tetrao Urogallus is a new band (at least to me) hailing from Hamburg, Germany, created by guitarist Dennis Rux and bassist David Nesselhauf, and “Gulo Gulo” is their second release, the follow-up to 2022’s self-titled debut. Normally, I wouldn’t have to bother with this album – after all, it’s described proto-metal and doom – but there’s something mysteriously intriguing in their sound that caught my eye/ear… Maybe it has to do with this strong weird non-homogeneous consistency… Anyhow, Sulatron’s press release states:

“Sulatron is happy to release the second album by this great band from Hamburg, Germany!
This album might deal with the fight between Tetrao Urogallus (Capercaillie) and Gulo Gulo (Wolverine) in a dark, spooky thunderstorm night in the woods. Fog, rain, lightning strikes, tension.

This musical journey between Protometal, Psych, and Doom-Funk leads the listener directly into this dramatic environment.

Dennis Rux (Guitar, production) and David Nesselhauf (Bass) recorded their second album in the temporary Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Studios in Hamburg (the usual studio space was destroyed two times in the past. One time thru flood and the second time thru a huge explosion in the building) where they recorded their debut. Along their side-projects Angels of Libra (Sweet Soul) and Hamburg Spinners (Hammond Groove) the musicians can celebrate their love for vintage Metal and doomy Funk with Tetrao Urogallus.
Together with Mark Norton (Sax), Jan Schepmann (Trumpet), Chris Haertel (Philicorda, Moog), and Corneel Canters (Drums), they recorded a very unique instrumental album full of fuzzy guitars, slow beats, ethereal organ sounds, funky brass lines, space echoes and unexpected changes”…

“Gulo Gulo” consists of just 6 tracks, 4 of which are placed on the 1^st side of the LP while the whole ‘B’ side is occupied by 2 tracks, the one being a 5-piece composition. The self-titled “Gulo Gulo” starts the album and despite its heavy and kind of slow doomy intro, it evolves into an adventurous creep-a-delic progressive anthem with a kind of heavy jazzy edge, needless to say, this track as all the music in here, is instrumental, no lyrics… Heavyness continues on “Aurora”, but now there’s a sweet old 60s aura! Actually, the whole track seems/sounds to be based upon the main riff of the song “Better By You Better Than Me” (originally by Spooky Tooth, 1969), though the band finds someplace to experiment and to move a bit forward from that ‘cursed’ daemonic riff, resulting an amazing piece of jazzy-flirting progressive rock where heavy guitars are blending with pompous bass lines under the supervision of a majestic trumpet sound! “Lupus” starts heavy (of course) but soon the band dives into a deep dark and cold PSYCH-edelized soundscape, and then there’s this mournful trumpet sound that makes the whole track act as a funeral orchestrated song. “Regnum Umbrarum” uses heavy guitars, a beatable bass rhythm, some funereal trumpet, and some really groovy haunted-like keys, this is another piece of dark Prog-Jazzy music that becomes quite HEAVY in the middle, actually the guitar is metal-flirting BUT the trumpet is there, is there to keep the needed balance in the track… A balance that is interrupted when the Sax decides to enter and choose a side… The next 3:26 minutes that open the 2nd side are named “Corvus Corax”, and probably they are the best three-and-a-half consecutive minutes in this album! A wonderful tune, funeral-like, progressively jazzy, a track that takes the listener back to the early 70s, it actually feels like you’re inside the 1970s album “Afreaka” by Afro-Rockers Demon Fuzz! Side ‘B’ closes with “Vetus Imperium”, a 5-piece suite that includes “I – Psychotria Virdis”, “II – Ultimum Occasum”, “III – Occursus Nocturnus”, “IV – Paludis Deus”, and “V – Vetus Imperium Aeternum”. Of course, there’s a lot happening inside the 18:29 minutes of this track, a pompous epical huge anthem! There’s old school Progressive Rock (Vertigo comes to mind), there’s some mourning Jazz Rock, (New Orleans style), there’s some – to my surprise – lysergically trippy PSYCH, some flute-based Folkie passageways. The trademark sound for me is that imposing magnificent trumpet sound that shines all over the track! The band makes other interesting passageways too, a creepy-like avant-garde one, an experimental futuristic Space Rock other, at some point the track enters the darkest and coldest side of the Flute while bass and keys are trying to explore some dark side of Psychedelia (sadly for just a short time), of course, the commanding Trumpet is there, always there, guarding, supervising, and finally bringing everything and everybody back to “senses”, back to this terrific hallucinated distorted reality… The track ends with the necessary passage from an electronically flavored Kraut Rock pattern, leaving the listener with an astonishing cinematic sense/feel… This is a multi-layered Progressive Rock epos… So, Tetrao Urogallus, delivered a fine album, a heavy one, but full of quality and suspense! Probably it will disappoint Metalers but I’m sure it will please open-minded Psychers… TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through TETRAO UROGALLUS Bandcamp

Visit TETRAO UROGALLUS Facebook

Get the album directly from SULATRON RECORDS

Alternatively, get it through SHINY BEAST Mailorder