Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Just sit on this groove and chew", 12 Jul 2008
The saying in the groove means if I have understood it correctly that someone is on the top of their particular game, that they are performing as well as can be expected. It could also mean literally that you are in a groove but that's unlikely so we'll put that to one side. The reason I mention this is because on Directions To See A Ghost The Black Angels are very much in the groove ...but by that that I mean they hit a musical groove of linear proportions and stay there. Whether this constitutes being in the metaphorical groove rather depends on which song you are listening to at the time.
The six piece from Austin engage in an motorik drone like rock that will invite comparisons to Spacemen 3(Though they remind me most of Loop) or maybe The Velvet Underground . The band even use an instrument called a drone machine as well as multiple guitars, organ, percussion and vox .Despite this the music is limited stylistically with relentless banks of fuzz, wah wah etc.Its like walking into the demonstration room at a guitar convention,.However when they hit a true locked in furrow of sound, one that they can develop and build on , rather than one that actually dissipates the longer it buzzes on like the album closer , the sixteen minute plus "Snake In The Grass". this band are a formidable proposition. "You On The Run" ,"Doves" and "Science Killer" are all sonic bombardment of real quality . "Deer -Ree Shee" spangles sitar into the turbid whirl of cacophonous sumptuousness. "Never/Ever" hints at a My Bloody Valentine apocalyptic mother lode but spoils it with some scuzzed up noodling ."Vikings " attempts for threatening significance with deliberate interment heavy drums but is merely stodgy.
The music is doubtlessly influenced by the heavy political themes that govern the albums ambience . The lyric sheet gives each song a sub-title .So for instance "You In Colour" , a bracing blast of fuzzed like coils of guitar, crashing cymbals, and turgid bass is sub-headed "The confusion of black and white" and has themes of colonialism and subjugation . The band cogitate on war, alienation, conquest and moral ambiguity with Solemn intensity , the vocals of Alex Maas delivered are delivered with true gravity, often with a disconcerting echo effect. I feel given the albums unremitting claustrophobic atmosphere it might have been better with some judicious editing. At over seventy minutes long even the most ardent lover of these all enveloping fortified grooves will struggle to listen to it all in one sitting . Still with the finger poised over the skip button /switch there is much to lose yourself in on Directions To See A Ghost. Tracks like "Mission District" and the organ heavy "18 Years" carry a particular inexorable thrill. As the band say on "You On The Run": "Just sit on this groove and chew".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Echoes and Influence, 2 May 2009
This isn't a full review so much as an addition and some context to some of the other comments made about this cd.
The added titles and explanatory notes in the booklet (referred to in one review) seem to me to be a deliberate reference to fellow Austinites, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators (and the notes that were added on their first album). Not only are the Elevators a clear musical reference, but they offer a fair context and legacy for modern psychedelic drone rock to follow. The fact that this band reference them (as well as promote ongoing psychedelic events in Austin) shows a reverence to the past as well as the desire to further it.
As a result of the Elevators' experiments, other bands don't have to make the same mistakes, which is why this overall album (and its predecessor) is much more listenable than some of its influences. So while it's a fair reflection to say that Red Krayola and other International Artists bands have influenced this, it's not to the bad, as much as Spacemen 3 and Loop are inevitably mentioned too: none of these bands/albums are the beginning and end of this one's style. It is, after all, pretty impossible to avoid these kind of references if you make this kind of superb drone rock.
I think the fact that the Black Angels supported the Warlocks is a good place to start and end. This band sounds more of a throwback bercause of how polished their 60's tropes are. They also sound a lot darker and more raga-tinged than more modern riffing droners, like the Warlocks are. They're a perfect addition and complement to bands making this kind of repetitive, hypnotic and seductive music, then.
I'm not sure where originality, reference, and ambience should combine and compromise and how that should be judged. But in any case, this is a great album showing off its references as well as its own direction. An album that sounds this much of a time couldn't really have been made until after it, i think. As a result the Black Angels are currently one of my favourite listens for both their familiarity and their differences.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Blacks Angels' Songs Of Death, 5 April 2008
The Black Angels' first effort, 2006's "Passover" was received, at least critically, by rapturous reviews praising its abrasive timelessness while acknowledging its obvious late 60's/ early 70's influence; the use of a drone machine through most of the record, Alex Maas' almost shamanic voice recalling the late Jim Morrison and a guitar sound descending right from the vaults of the 13th Floor Elevator couldn't hide the fact this rather young bunch of people were nevertheless quite original on their own.
If "Passover" was littered with dark lyrics and a general mood verging on the sinister, it still had a few rockier moments ("Young Men Dead", "Manipulation" and the single "Better Off Alone") that preserved it from being a totally depressing listening experience. Well in that respect, their sophomore effort, the aptly-titled "Directions To See A Ghost", digs even deeper into that apocalytic vision of a world gangrened by war, hate and the human race's ability to destroy anything good around its desolate world. If that might appear naive or desperately hippie for hip's sake on paper, on record it works (once again) remarkably well, as you can feel this six-piece bunch really breathing through this utterly passionate music.
If on the first LP, an effort had to be made to discern the melody from the noise surrounding it, this time around the task is to differenciate one track from the other, as "DTSAG" is built like a lengthy digression (70 minutes + !) over the same slow, hard and menacing groove. From the rampant infectious opener "You On The Run" to the last hypnotic 16 minutes of live favourite "Snake In The Grass", you can barely find a few lighter moments after the first five tracks in the shape of the spiritual "Deer-Ree-Shee", the calmdown prayer on "Never/Ever" or even the shamanic yet almost demented "Vikings" (highly political lyrical content anyhow : "We Gonna Bomb You 'Til Tuesday / Important Vision / Incredible Smile"). "You In Color" provides a slightly more upbeat moment afterwards, before the record slips again into brooding territory, until the final bars of "Snake..." are repeated through a mere 8 minutes like a mantra for the end of the world...
For all the difficult listening experience it is, "DTSAG" remains challenging however, if you dare entering The Black Angels' world that gives a distorted if frighteningly accurate vision of our ravaged so-called civilized conceptions.
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