Time for
another split lp.. This time with California space rockers, Farflung and the
leader of La Ira de Dios (RIP), Chino with his solo act, 3AM. The Farflung side
starts things off with Jettisoned into the Rushes….Phase 2. It starts with a
synth drone, repeated vocal and then a guitar line slowly works its way in. By
the time the repeated vocal line is over you are glad.. it was too long. The
drums now kick in and the same delay guitar line is repeated over and over
until the bass line joins and then a groove gets going and some synths float
over the top and around the soundscape. Now it starts to get strange with some
discordant guitar and additional percussion. Pretty strange but then a normal
spoken word vocal comes back in and drives the energy up again. The repeated (Its one day) line returns as
the song fades out. Mercere starts with a more energetic drum and bass groove
and a load of spaced out sounds come and go as the groove and simple guitar
line moves things along. I really miss the lead guitars from the old records as
mostly it is just atmospherics, noises and not much rock leads. Lots of cool
layers of guitars on this track though. Nice acoustic guitar as well. Petrol
for the Crows is also uptempo and tells a strange story with male and female
lead vocals as the track is quite spaced in the background. If you are expecting the intense space rock
of Wound in Eternity, that is not this stuff. It is more relaxed spacey music,
more melodic, but not very normal. I like that. They still push their art in a
cool way.
The 3AM side
features 4 tracks, including a reworking of one old La Ira De Dios song and a
cover of Willie Dixon and Acidos Acme cover. I found it funny that is says all
songs by Chino except… which means only Fire is by Chino as the other three are
cover song! Why not just say Fire by Chino and leave the rest of the song
credits as is.. I wasted enough of your time.. let’s get to the record. If you
have seen Chino’s live set on this last European tour, this material is quite
similar. Fire starts things off with a reverberating guitar, drum machine and
another guitar line and then the distant vocal comes in and it all slowly gets
more intense, the drums get faster, the reverberations, etc... Trippy sounding
stuff. Eterna Ascension (La Ira De Dios from the 1st
abum) slows things down and there is only the one guitar line to start and then
he plays a long guitar solo between vocal parts. Venus is quite slow and really
stoned. Hidden Charms (Willie Dixon) is a quite cool version with some more
drum machine, slide guitar and spaced out vocals.. If you are a fan, you will
dig this stuff as well. One man psych rock. Cool record with a nice insert with
some additional information. The silver vinyl edition I have looks really cool
as well.
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