The Black Angels briefly strayed from their trademark psych-rock drone on 2013\u2019s Indigo Meadow. <\/i>But thankfully, the detour didn\u2019t last for the Austin band, whose new album is supremely confident and very good.<\/p>\n
Slabs of droning hard rock have been around for decades now but are not really done by many modern artists, so listening to the Angels will immediately call to mind previous works by the Doors, Black Sabbath, early Pink Floyd, and Iron Butterfly, not to mention late-period practitioners like Kyuss and early Soundgarden. But the Angels makes these ingredients their own due in part to Alex Maas\u2019 hypnotic vocal work, which is not forced in front of the mix but reduced to be part of the swirl. From his octave bouncing in opener \u201cCurrency\u201d to the whole of \u201cHalf Believing,\u201d he owns the disc, but not once do you believe he feels this way.<\/p>\n
The music is equally hypnotic. It manages to be sludgy and intoxicating at the same time, played in low keys and low registers, but the downcast approach is rarely depressing or melancholy. To that end, there aren\u2019t a lot of hooks or riffs that stand out, which is perhaps by design, as the disc feels like a complete work not meant to be picked apart. However, \u201cComanche Moon\u201d is probably the best place to start, effortlessly weaving a wall of guitars with Maas\u2019 multi-tracked vocals (with help from the others) and layers of echo that still finds space to breathe between choruses. <\/p>\n
Really, there\u2019s not a bad song on the disc, just a few that are less standout than the others, like \u201cHunt Me Down\u201d and the sadly-underused \u201cDeath March,\u201d a song that should be a lot cooler based on that title. There are a couple where longtime AM classic rock listeners will hear the influences, like a very strong Jim Morrison and Iron Butterfly vibe on \u201cGrab As Much (As You Can.\u201d But the Angels is good at finding variations on their sound, such as the rat-a-tat drums and post-punk vibe of \u201cEstimate,\u201d which switches between major and minor chords on the post-chorus instrumental section so that the listener never fully gets settled. Meanwhile, \u201cI Dreamt\u201d recalls both Can and Floyd\u2019s A Saucerful Of Secrets <\/i>era, with an effective bassline that underscores the general spaciness and repetition. Consequently, it\u2019s the second-best song here.<\/p>\n
Actually, the inability to settle is true of the entire disc, which is written so that you are both sucked in by the droning sludge and really unable to escape it until the last notes of \u201cLife Song\u201d fade away into a black void somewhere. Really, the six-minute song is a descent into potential madness, a weighty trudge where you feel every step on the vague journey Maas describes. It could be a trip into the void of space, a fall into personal madness or despair, the weight of the world on your shoulders, but Maas is so good with his keening vocals at making you feel <\/i>hopeless. Even a heroic guitar solo can\u2019t make you feel good about the parting shot \u201cI am you \/ I\u2019ll see you on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Look, Death Song <\/i>won\u2019t make you feel good about life or anything, so if you need to smile today, turn around and run. But if you\u2019re feeling just a little dark or gray, this is perfect \u2013 not only as a successful album on its own but as a testament to the genre and, one could argue, the Angels\u2019 best work yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9996],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-44931","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-black-angels","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44931"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44931"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}