THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “At least a decade ahead of their time, Josiah had a three-album run between 2000 and 2008 that few in heavy psychedelic rock could (or can) match. Their 2002 self-titled debut, 2004’s Into the Outside and 2007’s No Time saw guitarist/vocalist Mat Bethancourt, original bassist Sie Beasley and a succession of drummers touring Europe and their native U.K., playing festivals like Roadburn (’05 and ’07), Duna Jam and Stoned From The Underground, and headlining dates across the continent.
Recorded in Leicester and Wales during the pre-social media era of heavy, those early records (recently reissued by Heavy Psych Sounds) haven’t lost their edge, and even when Bethancourt put Josiah on hiatus to explore garage-rock and psychedelia with The Kings of Frog Island and Cherry Choke, there was never a loss of his enviable tone or signature songcraft.
Nine years removed from Josiah’s Procession release, Bethancourt and company began to jam again, crafting songs with a darker edge to suit the times. Rumors of a resurrection began to spread, and with a chance to record amid the pandemic-stricken latter half of 2020, they set to work on their return album.
Forging ahead to reclaim their legacy as some of the earliest architects of lysergic heavy psych, Josiah return in 2022 with the exultant We Lay On Cold Stone. Emerging re-energized and in peak form, the band sear forth with a barrage of irresistible hooks and tripped-out riff-romps, utterly new yet subtly infused with vintage flashes of Cream and Grand Funk. Striding boldly into a new era, Josiah confidently claim a place amid modern titans of psychedelic heavy rock like Nebula, Monster Magnet, Earthless or The Atomic Bitchwax, asserting vast gravitas in a style they helped create.”
