Music Spectrum

Phosphene Dream opens with a warped vamp akin to Black Mountain, but this is Black Angels and their song, “Bad Vibrations.” Psychedelic blackness abounds on the album coupled with obtuse lyrics and the occasional bridge that rhythmically breaks the song into pieces. The Black Angels seem to shine most brightly when they channel 60’s blues rock a la the Kinks and send it through their own dark style (“Haunting at 1300 McKinley,” “Telephone”). The road song, “Entrance Song,” pulls and pushes the listener down a blurred out series of highways and byways of oblivion.

The Black Angels

Describing themselves as a “instrumental cinematic rock band from Blackpool, UK” sums up well what you will find when hearing Goonies Never Say Die’s No Words to Voice Our Hopes and Fears. Their Myspace description uses the words “shoegaze” and “visual” which are apt as well. Big rock riffs trade off with piano on “Nothing Remains Forever But The Future Still Holds Hope,” a good snapshot of what happens here as orchestrated sections of songs verging on prog rock become entwined with elements of straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s music for headphone listening when your life needs a soundtrack. In fact, it reminds me of my one experience in Blackpool while there on a high school band trip. Our hosts took us to the amusement park for the afternoon where we braved a chilly, gray day along the sea to ride the rides and watch as our host teen spent most of the time making out with her much older boyfriend. That day I remember wanting so much to be back at her house, back to where my Walkman was waiting with music to be a soundtrack to an awkward day of exploring England but feeling like a second fiddle. Strangely, Goonies Never Say Die have created a song for that memory as “This Low Point Can Only Be Followed By A High” brings out that tension both musically and in the title itself.

Goonies Never Say Die
Deep Elm Records

Black Mountain’s brand of dark psychedelic atmospherics appeals to me on a spiritual level. While their forays into the other worldly charms of psychedelic rock may not lead to the same spiritual conclusions I would draw, still I can’t but help to find their psalms to be beneficial as I look back on their 2010 release, Wilderness Heart. I especially find that appeal in the country blues psychedelia of “Buried by the Blues,” revolving around the opening line (“Absolved forever/Into the darkest shades”) which is coupled with the resurrection-like chorus (“Against the night/You will rise and set your body free/Frontier of light/You deserve to let your body sleep/Away from the static and noise”). Buried by the blues of this world, we are absolved by the work of Christ on the cross and will be brought to a new world away from the noise of sin, death, and the devil.

Beyond that track, “The Way to Gone” rocks and grooves into the night. “The Hair Song” seems to be culled from Led Zeppelin outtakes. “Old Fangs” hangs on a classic muscle blues riff. That muscle speeds up for the blistering “Let Spirits Ride.” Altogether, Wilderness Heart is another strong set from Black Mountain, closing with the Led-like ballad “Sadie,” a bluesy slide across the horizon of a dark, dark field.

Black Mountain
Jagjaguwar

Darker My Love conjures up the spirits of pscyhedelia-fringed Beatles pop rock while always keeping a little dose of Country Rock on hand. Appropriately enough, the album, Alive As You Are, was recorded at the famed Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco. There’s a J.J. Cale sound to train track mosey pace of “Backseat.” The Byrds’ chiming guitar shows up for “Spitting Image.” A darker, bluesy side emerges for “18th Street Shuffle.” “New America” floats on a carnival wind blowing across a summer prairie. Imagine the Monkees doing something much more psychedelic for the jam of “Maple Day Getaway.” While the album comes from Dangerbird Records, it echoes much of what you might expect from those artists on Rainbow Quartz—psychedelic folk with echoes of the 60’s/70’s—while perhaps tapping more into that Country-influence.

Darker My Love
Dangerbird Records