Power Of The Cosmos...

Earth Drive - Helix Nebula (2020)

Coming about three years after their previous album, Stellar Drone, the Portuguese band of Earth Drive are back with more tracks than any of their other albums. Subtitled “Dust Makes This Cosmic Eye Look Red”, the new album shows Earth Drive continuing to hone their mix of heavy psych and space metal, and the results are downright fantastic, though it takes numerous play-throughs to appreciate just how much they've packed into the experience.

The first of the dozen included on Helix Nebula is the intro-ish “Cosmic Eye”, which matches a jangling guitar riff to deep-throb bass alternations, kicking things right into gear. A fade leads to the title track, in which rolling rhythms shift momentum between the two lead vocalists, on the back of guitar and drum swells. The excitement of the band to be back is evident, and it's hard to not get pulled in by that energy, along with the hooks and power of the song itself.

As things cruise on from there (with the transitory track “Holy Drone” guiding listeners inward), the care that the band has put into giving the album a persistent sense of flow becomes increasingly evident. Careful handling of the songs' energies creates something of an undertow effect; you try to think back to how the music got to a certain point, and you have to keep threading further and further back, as it builds on itself so much throughout the album.

To be clear, Earth Drive most definitely do not sacrifice individual song quality for the shape of the overall album. Song after song rocks and captivates, with nuances and twists helping to distinguish each track, though the underlying character is clearly consistent. Grooves and deep riff explorations are given full due, and the band's knack for going from an introspective moment of quiet to an outburst of liveliness gets put to superb use several times.

A pair of 'bridge' tracks (“Nagarjuna” and “Anulom Vilom”) mark the change-over to what would be Side B on a vinyl release of the album (and can some savvy label license this band's discography to make that happen already?). With the first return to 'full-length' song size, “Science of Pranayama”, ED reassert themselves in what feels like the album's climax, with the meditative “Deep Amazon”, expansive “Space God”, and outro of “Phantalien” following. All together, the new album is outstanding, and shows quite thoroughly how Earth Drive keep building and developing on the ideas of their earlier work. If you're a fan of heavy psych, do not let yourself miss this.

~ Gabriel

For Fans Of; Frozen Planet....1969, Hijo de la Tormenta, Jess and the Ancient Ones, Ksyatriya, Mondo Drag

Facebook • Myspace • Youtube • SoundCloud • Raging Planet BandCamp • Earth Drive BandCamp

Earth Drive - Dharma Throne

~

Splash It On...

chainsaw rainbow - art brut (2016)

With his latest album, Chainsaw Rainbow's mastermind Dominic Massaro offers up ten new tracks of effects-laden guitar and dreamy drifting, including a new version of "Love is a Vapor".  Covering a range from soft-ringing chords to blaring feedback (and regularly layering the two extremes over each other), the songs play with contrasts of aggression and introspection, spooling out hypnotic loops but ratcheting the tension up to prevent getting drawn into drowsiness.  Punkish raucousness and shoegaze's pedal play are blended in interesting ways throughout the tracks, whether pushing into harder territory or slowing down to calmer cruising, as the swirling tones and heavy resonance bleed together in well-handled waves.
The album also shows some changes in the way Massaro is approaching the songs, though picking out particulars is a bit tricky due to the idiosyncrasies of each individual Chainsaw Rainbow release.  Where photorealistic had a focused, almost tunnel-vision-like push through channels of single-minded drone and pedal drive, Art Brut shows more diversity within the bounds of the tracks, wandering about and taking in some changes instead of blasting away.  While both approaches have their merits, it's a little too easy to imagine the musician getting worn out on the latter in quick order, so the signs of alteration are reassuring, while also giving listeners who aren't directly in tune with the fuzz-drone experience something more to latch onto if it's their first time hearing the band.  As usual with Chainsaw Rainbow, check it out when you're in the mood for some good-humored heavy psychedelic material with a wide streak of shoegaze and drone influences, and you should be well satisfied.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Mind, Skullflower, Spacemen 3, Telstar Sound Drone, Terminal Cheesecake

Facebook • BandCamp

chainsaw rainbow - love is a vapor

~

The First Breath...

Stonebirds - Into The Fog... And The Filthy Air (2015)

Stonebirds have been warming up since 2011, with a demo, a split, and a live EP released since their start.  Come July, they'll be putting forth this first full album, with its five big tracks of psychedelically-influenced doom and heavy rock.  First of the five is "After the Sin", which sets the standards for what follows with its deep-layered riffs, twisting build-outs, and bleeding trail of harmonics.  From that mixture, the band proceeds to explore further depths of the combination, letting the undertow catch hold and pull them beneath the waves of bass and guitar as the drums give a furious fight against the drowning tides.  By the time "Burned Flesh" rolls in, the waves have mostly won that fight, and "Perpetual Wasteland" ends the album with an aggressive victory lap, going harder and deeper than any of the others.
It makes for an impressive first album, and with the limited vinyl release through Pink Tank Records scheduled for July 14th (500 copies total, in four different color variations), it's a sure bet that this will be a highly-coveted album in the months to come.  Keep an eye out for this one to show up on plenty of year-end top album lists, and get your ears in gear to hear this one before the release date leaves you in the dust.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Desert Suns, Hobo Magic, Chubby Thunderous Bad Kush Masters, Mangostone, Methadone Skies

Facebook • Pink Tank Records • BandCamp

Stonebirds - Into The Fog (320 kbps)

~

Beneath The Waves...

Telstar Sound Drone - Comedown (2013)

Comedown originally came out last year, and in the time since then, the album's built up enough surrounding buzz for Bad Afro Records to justify putting out a second pressing.  In case you didn't catch the original release, and you want to know why you should be interested, we'll begin with the question of how much you enjoy psychedelic rock.  If the answer to that question is positive, however you want to qualify it, then you'd do well to check into Telstar Sound Drone's musical output, which seethes with the tune-tied feedback of the most infamous '60s psych acts.  The songs don't so much play as drift into deep valleys, pushed whichever way the resonating tones want them, until the next track rises up into audibility and asserts its own groove.
It's really beyond me to try and describe just how fluid they make their music as the album moves through its paces, but touches used in addition to ~99% feedback settings on their pedals include a high-distortion rain-stick, persistent-echo vocals, and strangely-powerful background drifts of synths, while trying to figure out how they approached composing the songs just leads to one of those moments in which you shake your head in impressed disbelief.  They've put together a powerful and incredibly cohesive chunk of psychedelic digression, one which will cement the Telstar Sound Drone name in the minds of any open-minded psychedelic rock fan who takes the time to listen.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Earth, Salem's Pot, Wicked Lady, The Maze, 13th Floor Elevators

Facebook • Bad Afro Records • SoundCloud • BandCamp

Telstar Sound Drone - Evaporation (320 kbps)

~

Making The Monolith...

Brain Pyramid - Chasma Hideout (2014)

France's 3-piece Brain Pyramid has come back from tripping in the blue with their new album, the cerebellum-melting Chasma Hideout, which runs wild on a fuel of heavy psychedelic and hard rock. Capturing the spirit of jamming out in the country-side and lathering it up with some toothy distortion and sweet-finger licks, there's a lot of unruly and vibrant energy coursing through the album as it riffs and rips all over the place. Killer drum fills and rhythm switch-ups keep things unpredictable and energized, while the ~11-minute brain liquidation of the closing title track gives the trio the room they need to satisfactorily cap off their mad run of songs, including the massive shredding of “Lucifer”, the mighty acceleration of "Into The Lightspeed", and the space truckin' intro of “Living In The Outer Space”.

The album's release date is today, so if you have a fondness for heavy psychedelic with some high-energy performances, be sure to not let this one slip past you. It's currently available on CD from Acid Cosmonaut Records, so do yourself a favor and snap one up before they're all gone!

~ Gabriel

For Fans Of; Acid Elephant, Wicked Lady, Church Of Misery, Salem's Pot, Eternal Elysium

Facebook • BandCamp

Brain Pyramid - Into The Lightspeed (320 kbps)

~

A Heavyweight Throwdown

Irata & Solar Halos ~ Split 10" (2014)

It always makes me proud to see great, heavy music coming out of my neck of the woods, especially considering the kind of dead zone it seemed like 9 or 10 years ago. With both Irata and Solar Halos being from North Carolina, it's good to see more and more of these bands making noise on more than a local level. The first track on the album is Irata's "Semjase", produced by Kylesa's Philip Cope, you can already rest assured it's going to be one hell of a heavy track. Opening with an ambient guitar part, it lulls you into a sense of peace before the band crashes down on you with all of their might in a blast of sound. With plenty of peaks and valleys over the 9 minute course of the track, the band really gets to show off how talented they are, between serene valleys of spaced out Psych to the behemoth peaks of crushing Sludge Metal riffs that delightfully interrupt every so often, the single track has just about anything a listener could want. On the flip side of the split, you have the group Solar Halo's contribution "Of the Spheres/Mountains of Creation", and already being a fan of their self-titled release from earlier in the year I could be a bit biased, but this track is magnificent. With the methodical build up, the track opens up into an expansive sounding Heavy Psychedelic tinged Doom Metal song, especially when the female vocalist starts up with her beautifully resonant performance, which is counter balanced perfectly by the harder edged male voice that breaks in periodically. While their track has it's own sonic path that you must weave your way through, you're never lacking in the sound department, always plodding along, the immensity of that wall of sound they put out keeps you floored. The crisp and airy guitar tone, mixed with the way the drummer punches out his notes and the chunky bass parts that really fleshes the mix out and ties the whole song together neatly. This split will be the first release by NC based CrimsonEye Records, they're offering it on two kinds of 10" vinyl over at their bandcamp for all you collectors out there, and anyone just plain ole' into good, heavy tunes.

~Skip

 For Fans Of; Kylesa, Royal Thunder, Torche

Irata Facebook • Irata Bandcamp

Solar Halos Facebook • Solar Halos Bandcamp

Tearing Up The Night...

Aleph Null - Nocturnal (2014)

Nocturnal starts off with a squeal of feedback that lasts just a second before they pull the floor out and drop the listener into a pit of heavy resonance. It's a neat trick and a great introduction, and one that does an excellent job of setting the stage for the rest of the album's churning waves and swirling clouds of smoke and foggy haze. To say that it's heavy psychedelia would be a serious understatement, and they do a great job of blending '70s-inspired touches and progressions into the knee-crushing weight of modern heaviness with the amps turned up and fuzzed out. There's a nice subtle menace to the track titles, which include memorable names like “Muzzle of a Sleeping God”, “Backward Spoken Rhymes”, and the implicit violence of “Roman Nails”.

Along the course of the album, the doom elements begin to stand out more and more, gradually taking over the album to culminate in the 15-minute, two-part title track, which opens with some subdued chords that sound like they should be playing over footage of a funeral at night. On its way to that destination, the hard grooving, treacle-thick breakdowns, and massive drum rolls serve up more than enough tasty, chunky, and well-baked doom for any heavy psych or stoner metal fan to fill their ears, several times over. Excellent stuff, don't miss out on this one.

~ Gabriel

For Fans Of; Celophys, Olde Growth, Necronomicon (Brazil), Alice In Chains, Acid King

Facebook • BandCamp

Aleph Null - Muzzle Of A Sleeping God (320 kbps)

~