Ichabod

Given the unromantic duty of closing out a four-bander on a Tuesday night, two-guitar fivesome Ichabod answered Holly Hunt‘s demolition with their own brand thereof, frontman John Fadden shifting with intimidating ease between clean vocals and sit-tight-because-I-can-do-this-all-night screaming, lending the set a sense of drama to go with the alternately rocking and crushing riffs of Dave Iverson and Jason Adam, the steady and inventive bass of Greg Dallaria and the drums of Phil MacKay, which somehow prove to be the uniting force between the band’s space-rock push and their seething, malevolent sludge. Their psycho-delia was fluid through two new cuts from their upcoming LP, Merrimack, as well as favorites “Baba Yaga,” “Huckleberry” and “Hollow God” from 2012′s Dreamscapes from Dead Space, the latter of which closed out the evening on perhaps its angriest note — no small accomplishment considering the company Ichabod were keeping. - The Obelisk

I go way back with Boston doom crew Ichabod. They’ve been going since ’98, and I can hardly believe it’s been nearly seven years since I helped them book a show in Pittsburgh, and went nuts about their music thanks to their 2nd record Let the Bad Times Roll. This is somewhat of a different band than the one that recorded their last two killers, Reaching Empyrean, and 2012. Founder Dave Iverson is still on guitar, and longtime drummer Phil MacKay returns. Bassist Greg Delarria has been with ‘em since ’02 and stuck around for this record. Vocalist Ken MacKay departed and they moved in John Fadden to replace him. For the first time on an Ichabod recording, Iverson is backed by a 2nd guitar which is played with gusto by Jay Adam. You might think with all of the lineup changes that good ol’ Ichabod swerved their sound away from the core that took ‘em to the mountain…but I say you’re wrong. All of the bluesy sludge, doom, and heavy hitting hard rock, sounds better than ever on album number five, Dreamscapes from Dead Space with fourth album 2012’s progressive and psychedelic rock tendencies playing an even more prominent role (to be accurate they’ve always worked those angles on every album).

The first thing to note is that Fadden’s voice differs from MacKay’s world worn croon without eradicating the savage screams. It’s definitely not coming from the same place, and takes a little adjusting to on the first listen. That’s not to knock his chops at all; it’s just that for over an eight year stretch I’ve been listening to Ichabod with Ken at the helm. He was one of a kind, and left quite an impression on me after seeing them live. Once I spent significant time with this record, John’s voice grew on me. He’s capable of flying high with strong vibrato and a little falsetto, when he’s not singing through a blender of scratchy distortion or screaming his damn head off. His touch calls to mind Kyle Thomas, Dave Sherman, Jerry Cantrell, John Bush, Scotty Kelly, Layne Staley, Phil Anselmo, and departed vocalist Ken MacKay (the screaming portions are very similar to Ken’s). Like I said, after acclimating to the vocal shift, the whole record fell into place for me. “Huckleberry” kicks off with a grin inducing sample, and immediately plows into a 70s doom christened riff bumping elbows with jazzy, hypertension snare patterns from the always reliable Phil MacKay. The first thing that immediately hit me is how this record’s got the best production job Ichabod’s ever had. When Dave’s agile opening riff is paired with Adam’s rhythm axe, you can hear every single note that’s picked on both guitars. And it only gets bigger whenever Delarria drops his low-end anvil into a bottomless southern doom well that brings up a bucket of treasure in the form of a luminous Man’s Ruin riff which thereafter turns to a chugging, palm-muted biker brawler. Fadden sings with an aerial clean timbre at first, grasping melodies from the god owned sky when the groove is leaner, and then cutting them down to size with a wood chippin’ growl that’s been nursed by the Marlboro Man and Old Grandad whenever the song passes around a spliff packed with green and brown sludge. Iverson solos with heart and passion, psyching out his chords with a little Dave Brockian strangeness, and Iommian soul. There’s some alien sounding electronics or percussion that I can’t quite decipher, before the band breaks it down acoustic with gorgeous Staley meets Cantrell vocals drifting across a soma pill sea of unplugged intimacy. Despite the softness, the rhythm section remains beefy, Phil battering out intricate, Brian Downey-esque fills that toy with jazz and off-time measures of his own design, while Greg’s bass stays driving and hard-edged. This part of the tune could honestly be an unreleased cut from Alice in Chains’ Sap EP. Pretty fuckin’ cool!

“Looking Glass” is punishing stoner doom that sounds like two of the band members were born in Maryland, another two in New Orleans, and at least one from England. It’s the prime riffing, and harmonized wah leads that never stop lovin’ ya like a no good woman (no offense to the doom ladies, this is a review here, and we love ya), and they are flawlessly delivered through a gradually increasing volume boost. They have that Cathedral-esque massiveness (especially during the chorus), that heretic Eyehategod blues, and that spiritual Wino flow…Iverson and Adam at the top of their respective games trading ‘em off, doubling ‘em up, and letting their arrangements provide all of the necessary map space for MacKay to go fuckin’ bonkers and plot out his seamless, smokestack lightnin’ hand workouts (the rolling in this one is insane). John lingers in the monitors with crackling, static covered, spoken vocals that turn to throaty hollers for the verse, and powerhouse, John Bush intonations for the chorus. Phil spices things up with a nip of cowbell, and dramatic cymbal crashes, and later a cyclic tribal tom pattern that ejects the band from their cozy shuttle into the pressurized squeeze of deep space; reverb n’ delay goosed guitar melodies destroying the remnants of your spacecraft in a fireball burst. The send-off heard in this tune is a shit shakin’, southern sludge breakdown that mercilessly rubs the band’s melodies with a forty foot strip of sandpapered vocals, and paint huffin’ riffs that stir up latent mental disorders even if you’re in a ten mile earshot from their point of origin.

I’m picking up whiffs of Clutch’s riff-y, obsidian, hard rockin’ blues on the boiling mercury of midtempo jam “Baba Yaga.” Here the authority wielding riffs reign in their chaos a bit for a sturdy groover that’s got serious bass weight, and multiple vocal personalities (from a whisper to a scream at the drop of a dime). These riffs really move, and one guitar expands little lead melodies atop of the other’s tactical riffage, snaking in the right eardrum and popping out the left with drippy wah, gruffer doom grooves, and funky Hendrix like blues (heard towards the finale). MacKay adds hand percussion, most likely tabla (if this computer autocorrects tabla one more time as table I’m gonna fuckin’ piss on it), to the tune’s endnote which is rendered obese by the chunky soul and funk influences going on in the swashbuckling, stranded at sea duel between Dave and Jay.

We finally get to a somewhat chill number when “Epiphany” comes moseying in south of Saturn. Ichabod were always known to sneak in Floyd and Hawkwind influences/nods on their records; a cover of the “Nile Song” on 2012and the 9 minute space-out of their original composition “Manna” from Reaching Empyrean are pretty telltale of the influence. This one unfolds sort of like Reaching Empyrean’s “Violet Sky” which was a perfect balance of light/dark and not heavy/heavy vibes. The guitars are streaming with comet like flickers and trails of FX, while the vocals are washed over with wavy phasing. Since this is such an open number, there’s a lot of room for Greg and Phil to play off each other, and Dellaria’s bass lines are often a focal point of the song, directing the action from the cockpit with walking patterns that delicately deflect off of MacKay’s scattershot jazz fills and standard time-keeping signals. Low-end takes over for all of the other instruments at the 2:48 waypoint, and triggers whispered vocals from Fadden and a faint doom riff. Of course, you know that this riff isn’t going to linger on one wavelength, and as the vocals reach fullness and heightened melodic awareness, a retching sludge riff and psychotic screams (which are dead ringers for former vocalist Ken) realize the song’s maximum potential for destruction. And just when you think everything is going to play in a linear heavy riff method, an interruption of bongos and Eastern lead guitar melody (backed by an Arabic oud, a cousin of the lute) teleport your ass to the tip top of one of those giant, Alice in Wonderland mushrooms. “Hollow God” is a great companion track to this one, returning to hallucinogenic, free-form space rock in its early moments. But soon these bruisers crack open the liquor cabinet and can be found scrapping it out with the interstellar division of the Hell’s Angels in a goddamn doom donnybrook that ranges from gristly Sabbath riffage and Sherman-esque vocal burl to a cavalcade of chariot drawn thrash/punk riffs that Ben Hur their way to a chalice of holy smokin’ buds.

Incorporating stark soft/loud dynamics, and doom seasoned classic rock riffs, “All Your Love,” bares a distinct resemblance to rock n’ roll pioneers Led Zeppelin. Of course Ichabod’s take on the Zep is rooted in the bayou sludge of the American south, but light organ accompaniment, melodic wah soloing, and a heavenly choir of female back-up vocals elevate this above three chord fair, and you can just hear MacKay calling out to the late John Bonham with that huge sounding kit of his. “108” is a real smooth sippin’ cocktail, guest musicians Lily Press and Simon Linn-Gerstein contributing harp, and cello, respectively. These cats deliver untold melodic riches to the song’s ending and beginning; while Fadden’s soft, plaintive singing and the band’s gentlemanly acoustics lay you down on a pillow of clouds hand sewn in Christ’s tailor shop. I had a hard time believing though that this song at over 8+ minutes of playtime wouldn’t turn into a cobra with venomous intentions at some point… And lo and behold this Gigas of a mind expander probably rips into the nastiest screams and most overly bludgeoning doom maledictions heard throughout the whole of Dreamscapes from Dead Space. It’s a movement with a heaviness and spiritual shellacking can’t be defined by the words of some mortal man…self-experience is the only true answer to the question. Closing instrumental “Return of the Hag” is so 60s pop psyche it hurts (in a good way) with Dave borrowing the intro chord progression and wah from Deep Purple’s “Emmaretta” and a little bit of Ian Anderson’s flute (courtesy of Bonnie Rovics).

Ichabod have weathered line-up changes and that always deadly decade long turn as a band…these two factors alone have spelled imminent death for many bands I’ve held close over the years. Thankfully, Dreamscapes from Dead Space does not besmirch the band’s good name, choosing to instead raise the bar on their established mix of doom, sludge, stoner rock, 70s hard rock, and 60s psyche. It’s a perfect follow-up to 2012, and it stands tall amongst other benchmarks set in Ichabod’s storied past. Supposedly, the long talked about concept album Merrimack will be completed sometime in the near future, so it’s with blood rushing excitement that I anticipate the next release in this new chapter of Ichabod! - HellRideMusic.com

Boston, Mass. based Ichabod have been honing their sound for over ten years now. Dream Scapes From Dead Space is their fifth full length. The creativity and uniqueness here will really catch your attention.



The record kicks off with Huckleberry. It is easy to see why the band placed this track at the start- it is a real stand out. Thick sludgy riffs dominate- sort of like a US version of early Orange Goblin. A Scissorfight-esque vibe permeates the track, with promises of revenge and outlaw boasts abounding. A nice wah-wah solo precedes the first curve ball of the record, at around 3:48 the band change gears into a rather dreamy sequence that reminded me of classic Budgie. The vocals are a great feature and the production is clearly well thought out and tenderly executed. Double tracking is used to nice effect, of which you will really notice through headphones.


That most beloved of percussive extras- the cowbell- features at the start of Looking Glass and it is followed by more instrumental favourites; distorted bass, lovely hi-hat work and more fine use of the wah-wah pedal. Tempo changes are thus utilised with clever riff variants. Languid grooves prevail until a breakdown comes in around the three minute mark. The lull then builds up to a very enjoyable stoner groove with a distorted effect over the vocals.

There are shades of Monster Magnet within the grooves of Baba Yaga. Indeed, the record is very hard to categorise. There are elements of many sub-genres on offer here. It's heavy stuff for sure, but with some very light touches here and there- and this really makes for a panoramic listen. This light and shade is exemplified well by Epiphany. The start reminded me of Wishbone Ash (!) circa Argus or maybe Budgie (again) at their most mellow. The track takes a more sombre turn just before the three minute mark but the music lifts soon after and segues into percussion informed spoken word passage. Some sludgy screams round off what is a veritable smorgasbord of a song!


Hollow God follows this up with more spacey/stoner mellowed out sounds. The vibe picks up to a mid paced groove before too long. The lyrics almost wouldn't be out of place on one of Deicide's albums, in a way, but the juxtaposition works well. All Your Love has a rather bitter feel to the lyric, but the female back vocals give yet another dimension to this startling and original album.


The penultimate track 108 features some distinctly English sounds to the instrumentation. A mandolin (I think) is deftly picked along with acoustic and electric guitars and strings make a welcome appearance too. Again, the vocal is worthy of classic seventies prog. The production here is just wonderful- you can hear everything with the mix being very clear. The distorted guitars make a return to the record at 2:25 and a triplet time feel is introduced. Some psychedelic guitar work enters and the vibe is expanded and amped up prior to the track mellowing back down for the closing two minutes or so. At 8:48 the track is lengthy, but does not feel at all long.


Return of The Hag is probably best described as a funk workout- there is even a flute played here. The groove and vibe are Clutch-like and very fluid playing, closes out what is a superbly enjoyable musical journey.


The title fits the record very well- these are dreamy psychedelic compositions of the highest quality. After digesting the album I really don't know how to categorise it. There is sludge, psychedelia, progressive rock and stoner all mixed in here. If you like any of those genres I recommend you check out Ichabod. There is something for all to enjoy here- just play it, start to finish and you will see what I mean. I would love to see them play live.

Written by: Richard Maw

Another outstanding release. Support this amazing band. You can buy a DD here and physical copies of their record here - SludgeLord Blog

Oh the ever present doom metal world. As a jaded douchebag, I can't help but view a lot of it as disingenuous and having taken the easy way out. By no means am I a complete nerd who knows everything there is to know, but I do have very specific and picky tastes that exclude even some of the metal world's favorites from my must-have lists.

I'm glad to report, however, that I'm occasionally surprised to uncover nice little gems that at the very least bend my ear in a good way, such as this release here.

Ichabod have been banging away in the northeast US for the better part of 15 years, but damn if I've never really run across them outside of a passing nature in all that time until now. It's kind of a shame, because if this record is any indication, there may be a couple of things I'm missing out on. Nothing exceptionally new is presented here, but all the right elements are in place, and if that's the case, who am I to complain?

Ichabod play a very accessible and bluesy form of stoner/doom that directly recalls an infinite number of bands that they are surely fans of; bands like Clutch, early Sabbath, Kyuss, Sleep, and pretty much the entire New Orleans sludge scene show up here in tiny little doses that sound like influences and homages rather than ripoffs. It's not necessarily the type of music I voluntarily reach for, but you can't argue with the good results here.

For the most part, all the songs here sound like a less commercial Clutch, or a more commercial Acid Bath, with some epic screaming parts thrown in for good measure and a glut of fun and rollicking atmosphere. The band never gets lost in their own doominess, which is a great thing. The songs are punchy and catchy and might stick in your brain after a few repeated listens. Many purists may turn a nose up, but the focus on complete songs rather than atmosphere wins out here, and this is an all-in-all fun record to listen to.

In particular, I thought the song "108" stood out, showcasing immense dynamics and balls to the wall riffing in the middle. - StereoKiller.com

"Fresh off of this year's Stoner Hands of Doom festival comes the pulverizing sounds of Boston-based band Ichabod. Although the band isn't really "new", the band has added a few members and a new sound. Featuring the powerful and passionate vocals of John Fadden, this band is about to unleash their latest cacophony "Dreamscapes From Dead Space" for the world to hear. Combining a heavy dose of muddied sludge, massive jaw-dropping riffs, soothing psychedelic overtones and an uppercut of Boston hardcore this band is sure to gain your respect. Mark your calendars because September 25th is the date when you will discover your next favorite band." - Heavy Planet