POCKET GODS: The Green Man DBLCD
Possibly one of the most uncompromising groups inhabiting the psychedelic music arena, around today, and certainly one of the most far-out. The first disc features just 4 tracks over a massive sixty seven minutes of music, and the line-up of Mark C Lee on vocals, guitars, keys and drums, Bert D'hooge on guitars, keys and drums, Annelise Moeke on drums and keys open proceedings with the mighty 'Into The City', a track that is founded on a positive ocean of swirling, droning, searing, fuzzed, driving, riffing and red-hot electric guitars, with guitars seemingly coming out of every crevice of the mix as the drums drive it all to the stars and this immense backdrop of what can only be described as a cross between a sort of synth and choral effect, all combine to produce this huge wall of sound. Above this an impassioned vocal provides the song with a tension that's almost at breaking point as the intensity of the yearning vocal increases as the song progresses, the whole thing becoming this immense force of psychedelic density.
'Living on A Leyline' opens with four minutes of incendiary electric guitar leads, solos, riffs and swirls, as it has you hooked, over the pounding bass, driving drums and chiming rhythm guitars. As the guitarist practically turns the guitar inside out with a massive sea of driving jamming, that awesome vocal begins again, sounding uncannily like Krel's Martin M, as it drawls and sings with an almost bitter intensity to immaculate effect, and all the while this explosion of lead and soloing and riffing psychedelic guitars is causing you to hallucinate and takes you right out into a whole new universe as the solid, mid-paced, relentless, driving rhythms take it all forward. As the track goes, the intensity increases and an event-horizon of sound fills your head with swirling splendour and searing heat as guitars, way distant keys and more on-fire guitars, just go into meltdown to produce an effect that's way beyond awesome, and positively mind-altering. On it goes, never faltering, never letting go, a solid mid-paced monster of psychedelic intensity that takes you up and doesn't bring you down, over seventeen minutes of perfection.
'Mountains Of Madness' opens with a more relaxed mix of acoustic guitar strumming away, piano providing a neat melodic accompaniment, half-echoed vocal soaring away in classic Mellonova fashion, as a distant sea of almost feedback-laced searing electric guitars soars away in the background, the drums providing an almost Eastern feel to the picture. Gradually, the intensity increases, the guitars come up in the mix and the whole thing has that incredible seventies feel to it - as does a lot of the rest of the album - which reminds you of some lost Krautrock slice of psychedelia that you just can't put your finger on. This musical pattern, arrangement and pace continues to the nine minute point to unleash an electric lead guitar that solos briefly only to fade to the sound of just the acoustic guitars and the tabla-like drums, before these, too, die away, to be replaced by melodic piano and strummed acoustic guitars in the foreground, with a distant soaring electric guitar chiming in the background, the whole thing slowly fading towards a fourteen minute end.
The final track, 'On The Trail Of Monsters' goes right into the song with no introduction, as the oceans of guitars returns, the lazy vocals do their magic and, this time, more obvious lead electric guitars solo above the sea of guitars that runs underneath, as the entire arrangement carries on the wall-of-sound approach but in a crystalline psychedelic setting, the production allowing you to hear everything clearly, without losing any of the fuzz, the rawness, the psychedelic seventies guitar work and the huge-sounding, mid-paced and seriously solid band in action. On this track, there are more cutting lead guitar solos than ever and it's a case of in and out, as the vocals and guitars come and go, all the time a kind of White Stripes-esque wall of drumming taking the track to heady heights as the guitars swirl and drive, doing their stuff to perfection. Overall, a monumental work of absolute genius.
But it doesn't end there - this is a double album!! Slip in CD 2 and you'll see 4 tracks over forty nine minutes. It begins with the seventeen minute 'The Bells Of St Leonard' with a sitar-like sea of acoustic guitars and distant choral sounds at the back of the mix as rumbling drums and waves of melodic, urgent acoustic guitars weave spells on top, giving the whole thing a very mantra-like quality that is just so hypnotic. The intoned vocals emerge just short of four minutes as the piece takes on a resemblance to a classic early-mid seventies, psychedelic Popol Vuh with more strength, more of an hypnotic drone quality to it as a constantly shifting sea of sonic delights unfolds, always changing shape but never losing sight of the feel and consistency of what is a seriously brilliant slice of psychedelic acoustic magic. The seven minute 'King Of The Wood' is an echoed piano-led slice of psychedelic folk with percussion, deep shuffling bass, intoned folky vocals and decidedly forest feel, if you get my drift - you almost expect to see a wicker man in the garden after this one! The eight minute 'Population Three' opens with tambourines and acoustic guitars, a searing sea of lead guitars droning away at the bottom as deep bass rumbles along and cymbals splash, the intoned vocal leading the ever increasing intensity as the track starts to build strength, never actually breaking out but creating the most amazing tension in the music, that's positively addictive, as more sitar-like leads are added to the mix of guitars already taking the arena. But then it all suddenly dies to leave just vocal and piano - exceedingly atmospheric - to take the track to its end point in wonderful if slightly bizarre fashion.
Finally, the eighteen minute 'Beyond The Beyond' is another electric stunner of a track that's every bit as mind-bending as anything on the first disc with the requisite ocean of slowly swirling, soaring, driving electric guitars, complete with shards of guitar solos splintering off and rising upwards, as the rhythm section rumbles in, the vocals soar and the whole thing lumbers its electrifying way to nirvana, one immense sounding band at yearning intensity that produces a truly sensational track of psychedelic brilliance.
Overall, a triumph - an album that sounds like no other but a true testament to the genius of writing, arranging and playing that's all over this phenomenal body of psychedelic jamming-style rock, one that goes to places other bands wouldn't even contemplate.
PSYTRAX ISSUE 2 CDR
Welcome to the second issue of the regular guide to what's new and exciting in the worlds of space-rock, stoner-rock and psychedelic music.
Psytrax is your guide to the best in new music. Based around the concept of the sister electronic music CD "Inkeys", the idea behind Psytrax is that the featured tracks are representative of the albums from which they are taken, so that if you hear a piece of music on Psytrax, then you can buy the album with confidence. It's all about helping the musicians to sell more albums as well as being a repeat-playable CD in its own right. It's also a non-profit making venture on behalf of the people who put it together. It's an ultra-low priced way of getting into some seriously xcellent music.
But this time around, the CD is LOADED with tracks that you can't get anywhere else and, in most cases, won't be able to get anywhere else in future.
We've been lucky enough to have Spacehead, Starfield and Space Mirrors provide exclusive tracks that are absolutely superb and won't appear anywhere else. There's also an instrumental remix of a track by Nifty Eagu & The Glo-Pilots that opens the CD in awesome fashion and is again totally exclusive to Psytrax 2, while Spirits Burning and Dark Sun provide tracks from albums still yet to be released. Dundee band SAZ provide an exclusive demo version of a track for which a superior quality version will be on their debut album, later on in 2006. Elsewhere, you'll hear album tracks from Worlds Below, Krel, Penance, Church Of Hed, Rotor, Secret Saucer.
At this price and for 78 minutes of quality music, you simply can't go wrong buying Psytrax 2!!
SPACE MIRRORS: Memories Of The Future
The follow-up to the groundbreaking space-rock debut album 'The Darker Side Of Art' finds keyboards/synths musician and drummer Alisa Coral reunited with the electric lead, rhythm and bass guitar talents of Michael Blackman with guest appearances from Litmus' Martin Litmus (one track), Meads Of Asphodel's Metatron (2 tracks) plus ex-Hawkwind and Starfield's Keith Kniveton (1 track), and on three tracks a vocalist, Amber.
The first thing you notice about the album, following the spacey intro, is the intensity - this is an album that takes no prisoners. Produced to sound loud to the point of explosive, this massive brew of synths, drums, bass and guitars and female vocals, strides a giant-like path through your skull as space synths swoop all around the place and this huge sounding amalgam of instrumental is positively jaw-dropping, the dirty guitar riffing allied to the soaring multi-synths and pounding rhythms, occasionally breaking it up for extra and amazing dynamic effect, the final five minutes of the twelve minute track, featuring lead guitar work that will make your hair curl as the album cruises and drives to a crushingly heavy space-rock finale.
'Travelling To The Core' pretty well begins where 'Creatures Of The Twilight' left off, with a huge sounding sea of rhythms and synths and guitar riffs, above which this incendiary lead guitar goes nuclear as this awesome solo flies out of the mix and carves a path through your head. Then, with the rhythms chugging along like a juggernaut, a synth solo ensues that allies to a world of space synths swooshing all around, and the re-entry of the lead guitar, combined with this soaring synth solo, simply takes your breath away, thundering their way through to a nine minute final point that ends considerably more sedately. 'Eternal Search' starts sedately with space synths before suddenly erupting into another ocean of synths, lead guitars, drums and bass, only this time they throw even more of the kitchen sink in, as the angelic but strong vocals from Amber enter the whole sonic soup and soar alongside the cannon fire of instrumentation that is currently whacking holes in your head. As heady a psychedelic brew and as heavy a slice of space-rock as you'll hear.
The near ten minute 'Death Inc' continues the crushing assault on the senses and this time adds voice samples into the proceedings for even greater dynamic effect, this time the combination of miles upon miles of guitars, rhythms that could sear holes in diamonds at long ranger and synths that go nuclear all sounding so unbelievably overpowering that you are transfixed to the sea of space-rock fury that is being unleashed, and I promise you that, up to now and beyond, you've never heard a space-rock album as heavy as this.
But then, a surprise as the pace decelerates for 'Mysteries of an Ancient Race', as a wailing synth lead is heard over solid fuzz guitar, chiming leads, mid-paced rhythm section, swirling space synths only for a steaming guitar solo to enter briefly before giving ground to the synth lead once more as the whole track slowly marches forward, at this point in the album, the intensity giving way to mid-paced lightness, albeit still solid and full-sounding, and coming across as a beautiful exercise in album dynamics, seeming to last a lot longer than its four minute running time - a good thing, I hasten to add.
'Feed The Serpent' is another similarly paced number but this time with a much more expansive, almost choral, synths-based backing, allied to swooping space synths, while the multi-tracked bass and drums and distant guitar riffs gallop onwards, and over all of this, we have the icing on the cake as Alisa Coral delivers a vocal that intones in almost Nico-esque fashion as the slightly echoed, mutli-tracked voice glides eerily on top of the dense instrumental backing, the guitar riffing climbing higher in the mix as the intensity increases, a corking five and a half minutes of building, sizzling, slowly driving space-rock.
The final 3 tracks and nearly fourteen unbroken minutes of music go under he banner 'Dune Trilogy', presumably inspired by the legendary sci-fi book, and starts with slowly moving seas of cosmic synths before a lone synth lead heralds the arrival of a huge space-rock juggernaut of instrumentation as guitars, synths and bass/drums move slowly forth, this time Amber's vocals, slightly higher register than Coral's, deliver the song as they soar above the musical maelstrom swirling down below, the vocals in classic space-rock vein and providing that extra touch to a steaming track that dies down right at the end only to segue directly into this roaring morass that is 'The Space Crusade' where the Meads of Asphodel's vocalist Metatron adds a Lemmy-like vocal over the supercharged arrangement of rampaging rhythm section, swirling fuzz and lead guitars plus cascading synths that fall from the skies as the song scorches onward in a blaze of space-rock fury, ending on lone synth and echoed percussion before once more segueing into the final part of the continuous track, with a solid drum beat and expansive synths/guitars/bass backdrop as the song drives ever on, with Coral's vocals now right upfront and soaring away, so perfect sounding in the context of such a solid space-rock arrangement, her range really showing through on this finale to the epic track, and a vocal performance to climax a massive, solid and wholly consistent second album of driving, intense, but never overbearing. space-rock taken to its almighty and quite logical extreme of power and clarity, excellently composed and arranged, played to perfection and a stunning album overall.
A final, bonus, track features their take on the two Hawkwind tracks 'Opa Loka' and 'Uncle Sam's On Mars', here done as a ten and a half minute medley that stomps the original and any subsequent version into the floor as the musicians and co-lead singers of Alisa & Metatron turn an insipid original into a burning track of comet proportions as the massive sound turns the Calvert menace into a big bang of epic nature and you won't find a finer version on the planet.
JUDGE TREV: Revolution And Rebellion CD
Oh, I love this first track - doesn't half remind me of classic John Lydon, especially the sound and the phrasing of the vocal - pure Lydon - although the choruses are more harmonious, but the arrangement with its riffing guitars, crunchy rhythm section and swirling flute, does have echoes of Public Image in there too, while the socio-political lyrics are excellently written and sung. A stunner! 'Cars Eat With Auto Face' is similarly constructed only less sound-alike - here a slower lava river of thunderous bass, scorching sax and searing lead guitar do their stuff over a lumbering rhythm section and more anthemic vocals, sounding a lot like a decelerated Hawkwind or Nik Turner Band in many ways. 'Dolphins' is a driving slice of anthemic indie-rock with a steaming great guitar riff at the centre of things as the Lydon-esque vocal and addictive multi-tracked choruses course ahead to leave you smiling. 'Bashin' Up The Rich' is a rampaging rocker that sails ahead on a sea of roaring guitars, high-flying vocals and monster rhythm section, again, another arrangement that's so infectious as the song, like all the others so far, just endears itself to you right from the off, another superb set of lyrics, the icing on the cake. The tongue-in-cheek 'Blue Rinse Haggard Robot' is a pure slice of classic seventies-sounding punk-rock with echoes of Sham 69 and the like - can't fail to have you grinning but still a steaming slice of song-writing and playing for all that - two and a half minutes of nostalgic fun. 6 more quality songs, all driving energetic and on fire, continue the musical veins mined so far, with space-rock, indie, punk and metal, all in the heady, raging brew. Overall, this is one stormer of an album - it really is essential listening and anyone into the more raging end of indie space-rock with strong, tight addictive arrangements and quality songs superbly sung,. would go a ball on this.
JUDGE TREV/JAKI WINDMILL/KEV ELLIS: Live In Portsmouth CDR£9.99
Describing themselves as a "doom folk trio", they wouldn't be far off the mark as this perfect sounding liver performance captures. It's not my sort of thing at all, but with acoustic guitar, occasional harp and male-female vocals, they sing some heavy duty original songs for the first part of the concert but then lighten up with a load of cover versions of songs by Little Feat and others for whom I know the song but not the artist. For what it is, it's done well - and he's got a neat line in gritty distinctive voices, heavily south of England accented. Your call.
VOYAGER ONE: Dissolver CD£12.99
It's a rare thing these days, to encounter a band that is playing a sort of brooding indie - meets - space-rock that can not only be described as commercial but also as being remarkably contemporary sounding and not as rooted in the past as most others. This is one such album. A set of 8 tracks in under forty minutes, one of the nearest comparisons would be a more synthesized, shoe-gazing, slightly space-rock more instrumental Canadian FM -meets-Sensations Fix with Stone Roses vocal tendencies - honest, no word of a lie. They've got that yearning vocal quality that the Stone Roses were so capable of producing on their classic choruses and more anthemic songs, while, at the same time, this band uses synths and guitars more like the legendary Sensations Fix did on their two classic Polydor label albums or FM on the legendary 'Black Noise' album, jut as atmospheric, just as melodic and every bit as consistent. The rhythms are electronic and electro-percussive, acting as way solid foundations on top of which the duo simply soar to great heights, the predominantly instrumental six minutes of 'Satellite Eye' showing this to maximum advantage, as the synths and guitars fly together in an gorgeous sonic expanse. The songs are so well sung that they become greatness, while the playing is all so organic and fluid, that the whole thing takes on a life of its own that is so addictive, so atmospheric, so full of feeling, that it endears itself to you, song after glorious song. Yet it's also musically original, inventive, with both a long-lasting and immediate appeal. As a set of songs in this vein, it's not only unrivalled, but unparalleled. But this is just the start - you get the distinct impression that this band has a lot more in it to come and if they can find the killer track to get some airplay, the world could be theirs.
ROCK/METAL/AOR:
BEYOND ALL REASON: Love Crossed Pistols CD Single£TBA
Ten seconds of searing lead guitar lead into a lurching rhythm as the lead male voice wails away above the ensuing rock rampage. The range of this guy's voice is pretty impressive as he sings his way through the track in suitably powerful, anthemic fashion. The song itself riffs and rolls, charged with guitar-fired electricity, as, despite the lack of an obvious hook or chorus, it takes you up and lifts you off in a rocket-launch of nu-metal ecstacy.
JULIA THIRTEEN: With Tired Hearts EP CD£TBA
For those out there obsessed with categorization and pigeon-holing, we have a brand new one for you, courtesy of this brand new Glasgow sextet, and that's "prog-emo". Oh yeh, prog-emo!! For what we have here is a band for whom the song is paramount - a band with a lot to say and they're gonna say it. They have a lead singer who is capable of delivering the heartfelt and thoughtful lyrics with a wide range of passionate angst in a sort of powerful yet mournful vocal at one end while he soars and flies at the other. Most of the four songs on here are dominated by the vocals with very little room for any instrumental space. But what make this brand of soul-searching indie-rock angst so unique, is that the band have, not one, but two synths/keys players. As a result, not only is the guitar work very much relegated to a more riffing sort of role, but the overall sound is very much more symphonic as a result of the huge swathe of synths and synth strings that inhabit every fibre of the songs. It's all pretty intense stuff, often soaring to giddy heights as the chorus and general demeanor of a massive sounding song such as "The Twins Of British Summertime" solidly testifies. But it's an EP where the songs are the stars, the vocals are impassioned and urgent sounding, while the arrangements tower over you in classic indie-rock proportions, the production first rate and the playing tight.
LVRS: Death Has Become Her CD£12.99
You know how you review a spoken word album? You tell the public what it's about, how it sounds and what the accompanying music soundtrack is doing. It's a story narrated by My Ruin's Tairrie B and features her mid-register American voice telling one seriously eerie story of death and romance via religion and sex. The good news is that it's a voice you want to stay with, a voice that carries the necessary atmosphere and structure that befits its subject matter - I can only imagine American singer Electra doing it as good as this. The way the story is told and the sound of the voice give this almost a song-like feel, something you can actually see yourself listening to again, and THAT's the important thing that you have to know if you're going to get something long-term out of this album. Musically, the backing is provided by My Ruin's Mick Murphy and here we have a mix of electronics and rock, from waves of dark synthesized soundscapes with a distinctly industrial cosmic feel, to seriously searing waves of cutting guitars and solid rhythms. The atmosphere is all - from relaxed to menacing - the poetry of the pieces somehow magical, as that wonderful voice twists and turns its way through a subject that is both hypnotic and fearful. Occasionally the voice is lightly treated with hints of echo, or phasing, but most of the time is there on its own with only the scarily dark musical backdrop for company. This is something you listen to late at night with the lights out to scare the crap out of yourself. You've been warned.
NINEFOLD: Superstar CD£9.99
An Italian hardcore quintet, they, unusually for bands such as this, feature a one guitarist and a keyboard player, in addition to rhythm section and vocalist. However, listen as hard as I might through the headphones on which I do all this stuff, I couldn't help but feel that the keyboard player had gone to lunch while the first two tracks were recorded. Come to that, what they play on these first two tracks, couldn't really be classed as hardcore either. It's strong, for sure, but it's incredibly melodic at the same time, only briefly firing up and going supernova between the guitars-driven arrangements, soaring vocals and solid mid-paced rhythms, more sedate than you'd expect, perhaps. Oddly enough, the third track, 'Toasted', does fire up, actually features a brief burst of organ to show that at least the keyboard player's back in the studio, and becomes a strong and tight slice of emo-prog, of all things, quite bizarre sounding in many ways and quite different from anything else of its ilk I've heard in recent times. The song itself and the arrangement are solid and atmospheric, but you just long for them to load the guns and explode. In a track like 'Empty Coke Can' they take on a positive King's X style of things and wouldn't sound at all out of place on any recent album by that band. A further six songs do their best to stay melodic, strong, mid-paced and not break out into anything remotely resembling metal, other than, as I alluded, the odd nod to King's X along the way. A strange album that takes some listening.
NON HUMAN LEVEL: Non Human Level CD
As thunderous a sound as you could imagine from this new hardcore-thrash metal band with speed-of-light rhythms from 100mph drums, tungsten-strength bass, all topped with wild guitar riffs and solos that give the whole thing cohesion and guts. Above all this, the vocalist rages, roars, hollers, howls and even sings his way through a metallic mayhem of monster proportions. But, it's not all speed and blurring riffs and rhythms, since the songs are arranged to provide an exciting sea of dynamics that really make this something to which you can listen since, even through its blistering intensity, you don't feel overwhelmed by its roaring metal maelstrom. Instead you dive headlong into it, relishing every thunderous second of its forty-one minute running time. This is metal that raises the stakes on your mind, fairly dares you to listen to it, but if you're strong enough to take the challenge, you'll find a killing example of muscular, huge-sounding metal proportions rising up in front of you. Makes Opeth sound like a walk in the park - fierce, on fire and musically brilliant, this is the real sound of home-listening hardcore thrash metal that you simply cannot -should not - ignore.
SANDSTONE: Tides Of Opinion CD
Debut album from Northern Irish band and it's a class slice of song-writing and playing. It's rock but it's not heavy, it's powerful but so well arranged that the power becomes part of the whole feel of the songs, to such an extent that it's all one big sea of anthemic guitars and soaring guitar solos, the twin lead and rhythm guitars providing expansive horizons and high-flying solos. A track such as 'So Pretty' is an anthemic ballad that features a strong vocal from the lead singer whose Americana-styled voice gives the songs a sense of flight as he delivers the lines with a certain mix of yearning, bitterness, angst and passion. Then you get a song such as the lyrically aware 'Building Castles' which, while still being a grade A slice of song-writing, this time positively flies along on a wave of twin guitar riffs, surging rhythms and economic soloing. Sometimes, as on the storming riffing on the FFAF-esque 'Sometime Soon', the vocals seem to be a tad high for the arrangement but once you've played it a couple of times, it all makes sense and you really start getting into the thing. Most of the songs occupy a hinterland between nu-metal electro-acoustic power ballads and rocking & riffing slices of tungsten-strength indie-rock attack, with the lead vocalist sounding remarkably like the guy out of Placebo throughout much of the album's songs. An accomplished debut, it does resemble a heavy metal Placebo on a few occasions, and overall, the strength of it lies in a set of rock-solid quality song-writing ad arranging. One to look out for.
PAT TRAVERS & CARMINE APPICE: Bazooka CD
A 12 track album featuring 6 classic covers, three of his own originals and three co-penned numbers, all delivered by the guitarist/vocalist and drummer complete with Tony Franklin & Chuck Wright sharing bass duties, while guests on selected tracks include Bobby Kimball, Steve Lukather & Rick Derringer.
Overall, it's a solid, straight-down-the-line slice of bluesy rock that really roars ahead, dominated by the searing red-hot guitar work of Travers and the driving, solid, rocking drums of Appice. Vocally, it's excellent with Travers injecting new life into such vintage songs as 'Superstitious', 'Politician' and Aerosmith's 'Last Child'. Riffing and rolling through a fierce sea of wall-to-wall arranged songs, the band catch fire throughout. Some of the songs are more bluesier and less metallic, but , overall, if you like your blues rock on the solid, hi-octane, anthemic and sheer quality side of things with electric guitar work from dirty riffs to smoking leads, this is not only the album for you, but one of THE best albums, either musician's made for years.
