Album Review: Ufomammut - Oro: Opus Primum

Doom is a genre which, to the untrained ear, can seem so simple and yet remains so complex that it has prompted Wino, one of doom’s most prolific artists, to claim it took him “15 years just to stay in tune”. One of the more expansive exponents of the genre, Ufomammut, have been eking out their laconic anthems of oppressive dread and invigorating power since 2000. This time around the Italian demons of doom and their unidentified flying mammoth (“mammut” being the Italian for “mammoth”) are back with a bold double-album release, the second part of which, Oro: Opus Alter, is due for release later in the year.

All of the band’s albums have a theme and Oro is no different. With a double meaning, encapsulated in its title, Oro combines the Italian palindromic word for “gold” and the Latin translation of “I pray” or “I speak”. The album itself delves into the concept of knowledge, power, fear and the human mind’s ability to distil those emotions into the kind of expensive bling you might find dangling from Mr. T’s bulging neck.

From the very first sounds of their aircraft powering down for ‘Empireum’, and the initiation of a steady speaker-to-speaker series of thrums and warbles, we are sucked from our burnt-out husks of lives and cast adrift into our own warped psyches by the music. The track builds from this point through emerging tom-thuds and snare-rolls, walking us down the spine of a twinkling riff, until we reach a battering crescendo of distortion, white noise and eventual overload.

Blacker, more menacing and far less captivating than the above are the tracks ‘Aureum’ and ‘Infearnatural’. The former drags us backwards through mud before hammering fuzzball chugs and dying vocals at us for 12 minutes or until we scream for mercy. It’s the more dastardly twin of those corpse-painted souls Primordial performing to the badgering rhythms of St. Vitus. With so many false endings it doesn’t seem to want to die, no matter how many times we hit it. The latter treads the same path with an even more sinister, all but obliterated, loop of spoken words.

‘Magickon’ returns to reprise ‘Empireum”s central riff, driving it through a couple of key changes, buzzing us back into oblivion. Hidden deep in the background are a series of vocalisations, a second track which only seems to become apparent when it begins to whine as it slowly sets about eating its own form. With ‘Mindomine’ venturing further into a wasteland of psychedelics, as monastic chanting leads us back towards Ufomammut’s penchant for cosmic drone, it’s something of a relief to spy the glowing exit sign.

Repeated plays allow a deeper connection to the changes of mood, the whole lysergic journey revealing itself as a maniacal descent into hell and back. Certainly, the message regarding the strengths and fundamental weaknesses of the human soul are potently clear. Despite my many reservations against repeating such a trip, it’s a message that I, somewhat worryingly, look forward to revealing further when they bring us the second half of the story.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2012/04/ufomammut-oro-opus-primum/

Album Review: Explosions In The Sky – Take Care Take Care Take Care

Here we have an album title that smacks of a last goodbye and yet, in a recent TLOBF interview, Explosions In The Sky assured us it won’t be their finale. Guitarist Michael James pointed out that despite this fact “it does have this emotional pull to it of ‘goodbye’. Even if it’s for five minutes or five years, there’s always an emotional component to a goodbye”. He also pointed out that by repeating the title three times “the words begin to blend together and ‘Take Care’ becomes ‘Care Take’, so we’re taking care of each other and saying goodbye and it just had this very sweet and sad feel for us, which really matched the tone of the songs”. Good news then because this particular collection of tracks has all the trappings of a post-rock masterpiece and is certain to leave fans of the genre craving more.

This is the band’s sixth album, and there is more of an encompassing rise-and-fall nature to the songs than we have bared witness to previously. They have threaded elements of dance and pop into the mix to grant us a healthy glimpse of their current collective states of mind. This is particularly noticeable on the tracks ‘Trembling Hands’ and ‘Be Comfortable, Creature’. The former is a short little ride though furious chanting to a driving rhythm that plants crescendos that peak and soaring bass that lifts you up high where you can throw shapes unnoticed, whilst the latter, an initial saunter down a sun-streaked forest path, leads to a neat free-falling riff, a flurry of electronic touches and a series of 65daysofstatic dancing beats.

Like all good albums there are emotional peaks and troughs. You’ll dip down as you feel the pain of the gorgeously mournful, tender touches of ‘Human Qualities’ and ‘Postcard From 1952′ which both have a see-through frailty about them. You’ll hear tapping fingers on pages, jogging feet, slow breathing through the nose, a rise in pressure inside your ears. Like paper-skin, the threaded veins of strings and gently pulsing heartbeats show through to speak of tough times in the many languages of music. You’ll climb up and marvel at ‘Last Known Surroundings’ which feeds tribal pipes, chiming keys, cyclical riffs and a persistent snare into the echoing machinations of a vast industrial mill to create a hedonistic wall of sound.

If there is anything missing here, it’s a lack of shocks. Only those brief moments of industrial psychedelia really make your jaw drop. One of those moments occurs as the countrified pop and bleak desert rock of ‘Let Me Back In’ bids you adieu. It’s a warped groan combined with a jarring reverse vocal and it’s almost enough, on it’s own, to make up that deficit. Whether it hits you hard or not you’ll still find youself sitting in momentary silence. So, as you exhale, a breath you didn’t realise you were holding, and press play once more, to allow yourself another pass though the picturesque scenery of yet another classy Explosions In The Sky album, do consider whether it’s their finest. Hyperbole maybe but, from this reviewer’s perspective, it certainly comes close.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/04/explosions-in-the-sky-take-care-take-care-take-care

Album Review: Kelley Stoltz - To Dreamers

Listening to San Franciscan Kelley Stoltz‘ upbeat, shuffling rhythms, all bathed in gloriously warm tones, is like having summer beamed directly into your ears. Melody is paramount in everything he does, and for this he naturally heads back to the surf pop, merseybeat and skiffle sounds of the 50s and 60s. On previous albums, he’s managed to cram as much Beatles and Beach Boys’ sounds in as is humanely possible and yet, whilst those sounds are still there (‘Bottled Up’ is pure ‘Eleanor Rigby’), on To The Dreamers there are noticeable deviations with a more proto-punk fervour being displayed and curious psychedelic and melodic electronic touches scattered hither and thither.

Where as ‘Rock & Roll With Me’, ‘I Remember, You Were Wild’ or ‘I Like, I Like’ inspire shaking heads and shimmying hips with a pitching drumbeat, a warbling sax or a metronomic tambourine, tracks like ‘Keeping The Flame’ or ‘Fire Escape’ get noticeably scattergun with sharp guitar strikes, howling pedal effects and theremin interjections exploding the simplicity of the backbeat with coloured bursts of psychedelia. ‘Pinecone’ and ‘Ventriloquest’ then shift down a gear, placing us on a gently lapping shore whilst a pinged bass tosses skippers over the wave tops and hammered keys dig out the sandcastles.

Multi-instrumentalist Stoltz has a small degree of help here, but the majority of what’s on display is performed by the man himself. His live band step in on a couple of tracks and there’s a delightfully buzzy cover of ‘Baby I Got News For You’ where “Big Boy” Pete Miller steps in to sing and play (on the same valve amp and guitars that he used on his 1965 original). Unsurprisingly, this track fits snugly into the album amongst all the other jostling nods to that particular era of gentile music. You can’t help but smile as each track kicks in and takes you spinning back down that time wormhole yet again. To Dreamers is, indeed, the perfect title for an album, innocently dedicated to all those nostalgic souls that yearn for a return to a time when things were just that little bit less complicated.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/kelley-stoltz-%E2%80%93-to-dreamers/

Album Review: Spirits Of The Dead – Spirits Of The Dead

Norway’s Spirits Of The Dead have clearly combined their love of 60s rhythms and 70s psychedelics with a fiercely contemporary take on blissed-out, wonderfully progressive rock that echoes bands like Wolfmother, Porcupine Tree and Dead Meadow. Employing echoing vocals, vibrantly upbeat drum patterns and heavily-fuzzed guitars, they twist and turn their way through a debut album that, the majority of which, they managed to bring together in just six productive days in an Oslo studio. Taking care to add and tighten up what they had meant they also spent time with Christian Engfeldt at Grand Sport Studios and also employed George Marino (Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix) to undertake the final mastering process at Sterling Sound in New York.

The variation of each track is impressively vast and is often to be found veering away suddenly mid-song. One minute we’re lurching from some summertime psych-flecked surf-pop (‘The Waves Of Our Ocean’) to a morbid dose of sludge-fuelled, burnt-out prog (‘Red’) with such lyrics such as “I ache for redemption / The river is red / As you ride me from my deathbed”. It certainly takes a few listens to get used to all of SOTD’s multiple personalities.

Standing out from the pack are the title-track itself and the opener ‘White Lady/Black Rave’. Amidst the dizzying downtempo wash of the former, lies a three-note riff heavy enough to raze skyscrapers, to level cities, nay, to crack the earth. So infectious is the groove, I found myself miming the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to it. No-fooling “Rock, Paper Scissors”. Fuck. The latter track is pure Doors. A rollicking rhythm jostles us along as a latter-day Ray Manzarek hammers at his Hammond to the sound of Jim Morrison howling piercingly, frazzled syllables from beyond the grave.

By digging deep into the history of music they manage to conjure up touches of The Grateful Dead, David Bowie, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and even E.L.O. and these all spring to mind at different moments as you enthusiatically progress through the album. Almost inevitably, it gets you wondering on that band name. Did they actually set out to invoke the spirit of past, deceased musicians? Whatever their motif, the design is impeccable and, at this rate, they will surely be haunting us for many years to come.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/spirits-of-the-dead-spirits-of-the-dead/

Album Review: Jason Simon - S/T

...It’s not often you hear an album without a full set of drums, but here the sloth-like in-and-out wash of the chords (on ‘Hollow Eyed And Howling’), an unfussy brushed snare (on ‘What You Put Into Your Head’) or the simple metronomic shake of a tambourine (on a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘As I Went Out One Morning’) will certainly still have you nodding your head along. When you consider the gentile psychedelics that Dead Meadow are famed for, it’s no surprise to find Jason Simon plundering down-tempo, turn on-tune in-drop out music but it’s still a delight to find him revelling in such uncomplicated, stripped-back songs such as these.

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/09/jason-simon-jason-simon/

Album Review: Serpentina Satelite - Mecanica Celeste

...Unsurprisingly, Mecanica Celeste follows a natural line of progression by burrowing deep into our sub-conscious with barely-noticeable, whispered text ideology that swirls around the fuzzed lead guitar’s meandering. ‘Sangre De Grado’ deliberately builds the layers, with bare drumming, followed by a hearty, bass rumble before delayed, echoing voices are tossed into the mix with a warbled, sub-level lead topping it all off – it’s chaotic, almost structureless, yet always reassuringly certain of where it’s heading...

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/09/serpentina-satelite-%E2%80%93-mecanica-celeste/

Gig Review: Korn – Brixton Academy, London, 25/01/08

You know you’re at a Korn gig when the mic stand gets the biggest cheer of the night – once when it’s brought out and screwed to the floor, then again when the roadie returns, and with a magician’s flourish, removes its cover. There she stands, the golden goddess of metal, alone on the stage soaking up the applause. It’s insane to cheer an inanimate object but cheer we do. To be honest, support act Flyleaf’s leading lady, Lacey Mosley, was less animated. Like a rocked-out Bjork she stood, playing with her hair, giving us the odd flick of her dress whilst all around her band were leaping off every amp they could find. “We want Korn” was chanted in return. They deserved a little more and eventually received it.

But now the wait is over and Korn stride forth behind their huge booming intro music. Jonathan Davis is wrapped in his black kilt, Fieldy sporting his bluest bandana. They launch into ‘Right Now’ and we devil-horn our heroes and mosh like madmen. ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ gets the biggest roar and the accompanying singalong almost drowns out the band. Davis is lapping it up and prompts chanting and fist-pumping which are aped by one and all. Fieldy’s slap-bass is simply stunning and he pulls out that thumb on a regular basis, holding his bass aloft when he feels worthy of a cheer. Behind him the shocking blonde tub-thumper and backing vocalist is wildly windmilling his locks before roaring bloody murder into the mic.

“Why you guys so fucking quiet?” screams Davis during a break prompting a roar so deafening he demands silence. “I need you guys to shut up for a sec”, he yells before paying tribute to the efforts of the current guitar stand-in. If I’ve got this right, it’s Rob Patterson standing in on guitar for Shane Gibson who had to “sort some shit out” who was standing in for Munky who left late last year due to family issues. Phew.

They launch into ‘Coming Undone’, deftly switching to Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ which is hollered by the whole Academy before slotting back into the song nicely again. Cracking stuff.

With the keyboards setting up the songs, intricately warping with complicated effect patterns and the drums adding vast snare drops the moshing and crowdsurfing intensifies. In fact, Ray Luzier’s drumwork is insanely complex with rapid cymbal work and mighty double-kick drills that ricochet off the walls. There’s a whopping great riser and when the dry ice is pumped on stage it truly puts him on a pedestal. Suddenly all attention is on Davis who has whipped out his bagpipes and is squeezing a truly awful sequence of drones from it but we cheer anyway – the man can do no wrong tonight.

Another cheer for ‘Faget’ and suddenly there’s a strong smell of pot smoke in the air. Must be the laser show that’s brought the stoners but, to be honest, it is mesmorizing. It wraps cages around Luzier’s kit and flashes dancing stars on the venue’s ceiling. The band shine even brighter as they gleefully whip through ‘Bottled Up Inside’, ‘Freak On A Leash’ and ‘Evolution’ before ‘Twisted Transistor’ prompts a whopping great circle pit down the front. They end on ‘Ass Itch’ which Davis claims is ‘totally my favourite track’ before disappearing off stage. The encore doesn’t quite illicit the same hero worship but it’s certainly shown that nu-metal still has a very important voice amongst its number – and that voice right now belongs to Korn.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2008/01/korn-brixton-academy-london-250108/