Now Leaving Orbit...

The Soviet Space Programme - Space Is Hell (2015)

This first release from The Soviet Space Programme carries a bit of a story with it, as the five tracks it contains are framed as the last transmissions received from the first human sent into space, shortly before an error sent him on a course out of the solar system.  Whether or not you want to believe that, the setting it creates for the music fits well, as the sounds of heavy resonance, rushing power, and isolation-enforcing studies in feedback all cluster around the sensation of being trapped in a piece of complex machinery in which something important has broken.
The track titles go a long way in adding to the album's central concept, with names such as "Thirteen Years in a Tin Can, Living on Institute of Space Science Food Substitute Paste" and "Dead Signal" (the closer, of course) sliding right into the oppressive vibrations from the amps.  That's helpful, as those vibrations and some synthesizer-generated beep patterns are most of what there is to be found in Space Is Hell, aside from faint and distorted speech (in a language my uninformed ears are completely willing to accept as Russian) providing a strikingly calm contrast to the mutations of the drone-tones.  Depending on your feelings about feedback exploration, it'll likely either hypnotize you or drive you up a wall, with the short interlude of "In Space, No One Can Hear You Pray" and the silence after the brain-melting final track offering the only release to be heard.  If you want to take a space-trip (or terrify someone who's in the middle of one), just put on Space Is Hell at high volume; a limited run of 50 red cassette copies are available now, for the price of £6.66 apiece, with digital through BandCamp.
~ Gabriel

For Fans Of;    Culto, Dead Machines, JETDOG, Sports, Sunn O)))

TJB Morrison Website • BandCamp

The Soviet Space Programme - The Zero Gravity Toilet Is Malfunctioning Again (320 kbps)

~

If Walls Could Scream...

le bomje - Warehouse (2014)

Warehouse seems to be the first release from le bomje (yes, all lower-case), a crew from Kazakhstan who are fully capable of churning out some nasty sludge, as they demonstrate here.  The album consists of half an hour's worth of low-tone madness packed into three long tracks, and from the opening squeal of the notes in “Welder”, they establish their style with clear and grimy intent.

The music is free from vocals, allowing the reverb on the strings and the big sound of the drums fill your speakers.  It also lets the songs flow easily from one track into the next, so that if you're not being attentive, the change-over from “Welder” into “El Tetragon” (or from there into “Submarine”) can slip right by you, right up to the point at which they slam in their new main riff.

The band deserves credit for taking the slow tempos, the near-drone insistence of the bass, the absence of vocals, and the down-right repellent sound of sludge at its most potent, and stitching it all together into something compelling.  If you're looking for something with a tune that will end up stuck in your head so that you can hum along, look elsewhere.  What le bomje have poured into this album is stuff that calls for its listeners to surrender to the heavy waves.  If you can handle the weight, though, you'll find an impressively confident and capable debut.  While it's bad form to predict a band's future, I can't really imagine this group turning out anything done by half-measures, and with this big of a start, they're already well on their way.

~ Gabriel

For Fans Of; Major Kong, Sunn O))), Bongripper, Skullflower, Ladybird

Facebook • BandCamp

le bomje - El Tetragon (320 kbps)

~