ALBUM REVIEW: Earthling Society - "Ascent To Godhead"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 04/08/2017

Label: Riot Season

“Ascent To Godhead” is a wild ride that demonstrates Earthling Society are the real deal when it comes to modern psychedelic rock.

“Ascent To Godhead” DD//LP track listing:

1). Can You Levitate?

2). Ascent To Godhead Part 1 (Godhead/Going For Refuge/The Celestial Mind)

3). Electric Bou Saada

4). Ascent To Godhead Part 2

The Review:

Riot Season Records continue to unearth the gems in the oversaturated world of psychedelic rock with Earthling Society’s new LP “Ascent To Godhead”. The latest offering from the Fleetwood trio is a truly epic voyage that begins with sun-drenched optimism and slowly descends into a dark well of noise.

The jangly garage rock of “Can You Levitate?” opens proceedings in hopeful fashion. This is as close as the band get to a proper pop song but it is coated in enough scuzzy fuzz and unhinged wah to remain reassuringly dirty. Once you have emphatically responded in the affirmative to Earthling Society’s request to levitate, the journey to the outer limits truly begins with “Ascent To Godhead (Part 1)”. A multi-stage mantra built around minimal repetitive guitar lines, minimal percussion and droning sitars, the track begins in classic Spacemen 3territory. As the track shifts between movements, the atmosphere becomes hazier as the ascension turns darker.

While the first half of “Ascent To Godhead”achieves mind-expanding results with a relatively restrained sonic pallet, the second half sees Earthling Society unleash distortion overload. “Electric Bou Saada” is a monstrous jam built around huge riffs and searing solos that comes on like a more ragged Earthlesstussling with Acid Mothers Temple. Just as the track reaches a furious peak of free rock intensity the band take a left turn into a more subdued Can-style groove. This maintains an air of menace even though the volume and dirt has been stripped away. This leads into the hellish finale of “Ascent To Godhead (Part 2)” where the journey has reached its destination to discover a nightmarish world in place of the expected utopia. An unrelenting fuzz-heavy riff etches itself into your brain as saxophones screech all around. The cacophony eventually subsides to a soothing keyboard based coda that attempts to bring the listener back to earth as gently as possible.

“Ascent To Godhead” is a wild ride that demonstrates Earthling Society are the real deal when it comes to modern psychedelic rock.

“Ascent To Godhead” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: The Cosmic Dead - "Psych Is Dead"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 28/04/2017

Label: Riot Season

Somehow the band manage to make relentless repetition sound like a captivating journey into the unknown, packed with more subtle detail than a million prog metal odysseys.

“Psych Is Dead” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Nuraghe

2). Psych Is Dead

3). #FW

The Review:

Sometimes just one chord can be a whole lot heavier than an onslaught of riffs. The Cosmic Deaddemonstrate this in style over the first half of stellar new LP “Psych Is Dead”. “Nuraghe” is a yawning 22 minute black-hole, a hypnotic mantra with an inescapable density. The track is based around a shuffling monochord groove that ebbs and flows between eerily blissful calm and outbursts of molten distortion. Somehow the band manage to make relentless repetition sound like a captivating journey into the unknown, packed with more subtle detail than a million prog metal odysseys.

The Glasgow astral voyagers thankfully provide a little respite after this epic mind-melting trip with the title track of “Psych Is Dead”.Layers of clean guitar loops and warm synth drones build up to create a wall of transcendent soothing noise. Drums are kept subdued and distant which help the band create an enveloping ambience reminiscent of “Beaches and Canyons” era Black Dice.

The calm is soon shattered by the closing crash of “#FW”.Another one-chord affair, this differs from “Nuraghe” due to its single-minded dedication to a pounding primal snare thud and guitar clang that builds up an unstoppable head of steam towards the albums close.

If “Psych Is Dead” it is because The Cosmic Deadhave destroyed it and created something dark and intoxicating from its smouldering remains.

“Psych is Dead”is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook