Started
in 2017 the band descirbes itself on discogs as: “plays instrumental stoner
mantra doom, inspired by myths and history. Stoner on the mother side and Doom
on the father side”. 2 portuguese guys
and one from Poland makes up this trio.
The bands first demo was created in 2018, called “In Portuguese We
Say Padrada”. This full length CD features 5 long tracks. After a short sample
for a horror film or something, a doomy theme begins! The pace of the track slowly grows as the
riff becomes a bit meaner and then the nice melodic line returns. Great
riff. Coffea Arabica continues with a bit of an arabic theme guitar which is
played solo for the first minute before the other instruments kick in at 2mins.
It goes from heavy to Light and back and forth. I miss a guitar solo that would
make it more diverse. He does add an
effect to the guitar later on so it does not all sound the same all the time. The
bass gets really heavy at the end with some added distortion as it goes through
some repetative sections. Zigguart starts slowly with a heavy mysterious vibe.
You are waiting for it to explode. A sort of whispered vocal can be heard if
you listen closely. At 5 mins it starts to get much heavier and intense and 7 ½
minutes a guitar solo (yeah!) is played briefly. Black Pig Secret Megalith is a sort of more
groovy almost HM track, still got the doom riff but some more action going on.
Cool song. Babylon/The Deluge is the last track and this is like really classical
Candlemass style doom with out the vocals. While this is nothing
groundbreaking, it is sold, well played, well crafted Doom Rock from Portugal!!
This is a site where I post reviews of CDs, DVDs, LPs, and concerts. I have been writing music reviews on and off since 1984. I ran a heavy metal fanzine from 1984-1988 called Metal Madness and have been a staff writer for Aural Innovations for many years. I have also contributed to Chrohinga Well (RIP), Bad Acid (RIP), Lowcut (RIP), Roadburn and a number of other zines as well. I recently moved to Portugal so please request the new address and do not send any music to Denmark anymore. Tak..
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Jambattista- Seeking the Seeker (Self Released)
I
have never heard of this Moscow duo but this is their first full-length
release. They released an EP in 2018.
They describe themselves as heavy psych. The album starts with Die Todten Reiten
Schnell, a sort of intro track that gets quite heavy and doomy as it progresses
but then the tempo and intensity picks up. Walker changes the vibe totally with
a nice melodic guitar line, with some supporting synths before the music
becomes more heavy and the guitar more distorted. Later the vocal kicks in with
a bit of effects on it. Three Crowns
Nine Tongues has this mysterious feel and I love the build on this one. Quite
psychedelic and moody at times. Seeking the Seeker again features some singing
again on this slow building track. Cool… Red and Gold is my fav track as I love
the guitar parts and vibe on this one a lot with dark mystery and spacey feel.
Fields within Fields without follows with some nice change of ambience as the
keyboards change the mood from heavy and dark, although the mysterious feel is
maintained as it slowly builds and the guitar line gets a bit mutated. This could
be something Motorpsycho might have recorded. ToY-J! is next and something
totally different and a bit more riff rock like with a few vocals here and
there but then it morphs into a hypnotic track with some psychelelic layers of
synth added to the mix. Very cool. The Strangler finished this debut off with a
bit of all the element of what makes this an interesting mostly instrumental
album of psychedelic music with a heavy doomy edge at times.
Someone
like Svart or Bilocation should jump on releasing this. I was quite impressed.
The best non-signed band I have heard in a while.
Dubbal- The Return of the Lonesome Traveller (Self Released)
Dubbal is a UK space rock band lead
by Kev (Doctor Brown and many other acts). The band on this release is: Kev Ellis -Vocals , Andy Radburn - Synths ,
Alan Shaw – Bass, Nick May - Lead Guitar and Grunty - Rhythm Guitar. I think this is the 3rd release by
the band with Dubbal I and live at Kozfest being the first two. The release starts with a long space in
that would fit right in with GONG before the guitars and very spaced out vocals
enter into the picture. The drums are very thin in sound and besides the
vocals, the rest of the band is way out in space as is the whole track. This
track leads into Fly on In changes the vibe totally with some reggae mixed with
space rock!! The drums and bass sound
much better on this track. Bring me the head of….. starts with some acoustic
guitar but becomes a classic UK space rock track with all the elements-
powerful drive and guitars, spaced out synths and good lead vocals and catchy
lyrics. I really like the story told in this track. A Hawkwind influence is
very apparent but nothing wrong with that!!! The title track ends this record.
It starts quite dreamy and spaced and then the drums kick in and the tempo
increases and off we go!!!!! The bass
line is really cool on this track. I
enjoyed this quite a lot but the sound production and mix could have been
better for my ears.
This album is also
released on a limited CD-R via the band web site below. The album is released
on Feb 29th 2020.
Electric Orange- Unterwasser Vol 1 and 2 (Adansonia Records AR029)
This is an EO release that I seemed
to have miss. IT was released in 2018 and features mostly album side long
tracks that were all recorded back in 2002 at a 48hr music festival where the
duo version of EO played 4 2hr sets!! This album features 3 songs from one of
the morning sets and the rest from the evening set. Vol 2 features more music
from this event. The music is mostly old
school electronic music made not by the full EO band but only Dirk Bittner and
Dirk Jan Muller and was recorded a special festival location. 4 album sides of
floating and spaced out mostly electronic music. Quite experimental at times.
E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr- Non Plus Ultra (Svart Records SVART 210)
This is a group I discovered after
seeing them at Roadburn. I have some of their releases and was very happy to
get this promo CD for the new one that is out soon. The group is a trio featuring the following
members and denoting the tracks they wrote: Ismo Virta (tracks: B1,A2), Jaakko
Penttinen (tracks: C1,C2,D2), Pertti Grönholm.
This release is a
double LP and features 8 edited tracks. Not sure if the full length versions
will be available later, perhaps on a double CD version or not? Anyway, each
side features 2 tracks and this starts off with De Suche nach dem Horizont (all
the titles are in German). IT starts with a nice sequencer rhythm and a sparse
keyboard line that sounds a bit like guitar. It becomes clear later it is a
guitar. Very melodic and I love the way it cuts through the track. Bahnhof 77 has an aggressive space synth
sound to start things off and slowly a new sequencer line bubbles up from
underneath as this slowly fades down to near silence at 90 seconds. There is a
totally different vibe on this track with the addition of mellotron. Very TD
like. Die Ewige Wanderer starts with some guitar and dreamy keyboards. Later
the melotron returns with some nice voice like parts. A bit of hand drums is
added as well. Love this track. Aus dem Kollaps Geboren starts with what sounds
like a flute and some birds in the garden of paradise!! Very dreamy. IT
eventually features a drum kit and Ozrics like delay guitars and has a sort of
ominous feeling to it. Hypnogenesis III starts off with a drone that is almost
like an airplane. Very dreamy and at 3 and half minutes the mellotron really
changes the mood a lot. Love the way these guys layer stuff together. This
track features one of the few lead synths solos. Nice use of the wheel!! It is
later followed by a short guitar solo. Some nice trading back and forth. Traumraum is the shortest track on the album
at just under 6 mins. It is very laid back and dreamy and all about the way the
three synths intersect. Der Doppelgänger starts with a repeated synth but then
continues like many of the other tracks. There are two trading lead like synth
lines on this track though. Die Vergangene Zufunft ends this album with 12mins
of pure spaced out stuff.
Most of the tracks
from the album are up on you tube now! Check it out if you like old school
berlin Tangerine Dream ambient electronic music. Great stuff..
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