We at
Desert Psychlist are not what you could call patriotic but we do admit to getting a nice warm feeling in the pits of our collective stomachs when we see a
British band getting a little well deserved attention, especially when that band is as deserved of that attention as
London's Morag Tong are. The band,
Adam Asquith (vocals/drums);
Alex Clarke (guitar);
Lewis Crane (guitar) and
James Atha (bass), might not be the most prolific band on the planet, only releasing three albums in a period of seven years, and they may not make a sound likely to bother the playlists of mainstream
rock radio but to those of us in the know these guys releasing a new album is a
BIG deal. You only have to head over to the bands
Bandcamp page and note the number of purchasers faces beneath their previous albums, "
Through Clouded Time" and "
The Last Knell of Om", to see the amount of love there is for this bands music and that love will no doubt be matched, if not quadrupled, when fans get a load of the bands latest release "
Grieve" (
Majestic Mountain Records)
"
At First Light" opens proceedings a lyrical plea to keep reaching for a dream/light/new day even when we can no longer see what it is we are reaching for,
Asquith telling us "
Tomorrow can be kind, an opening door, Welcoming and mild, so much worth fighting for" against a musical backdrop of ringing guitar arpeggios, thrumming low bass and sparse percussion that gradually builds into a storm cloud of dark crunching riffs, swirling guitar motifs and thunderous drumming as the song progresses towards its final destination. If you are trying to peel yourself off of the wall the opening song threw you against don't bother because the force
Morag Tong unleash with next track "
Passages" is going to pin you straight back against that wall, monstrous low slung
doomic riffage combined with pounding percussion and a vocal that borders on feral is the order of the day here and its a day you are not going to forget in a hurry. There is a green message to next song "
A Stem's Embrace" but one wrapped up in elements of
Greek mythology and occult symbolism, the song starts serene and gentle with an almost orchestral feel but with one deft drum beat suddenly erupts into a hellish
sludge fest of humongous proportions with
Clarke and
Cane's guitars spewing out a mix of dank reverberating riffs and swooping solos furnished from beneath by
Atha's growling bass and
Asquith's pummelling drums,
Asquith decorating the resulting musical tsunami with another of his throat shredding vocals.
Morag Tong go large for their final number "
No Sun, No Moon" an epic twenty minute plus opus that begins with isolated guitar notes pinging out melodically over waves of shimmering percussion then settles down around a basement low bass motif before building up around a fractured chord progression over which
Asquith rants at a featureless sky asking the question "
who will miss us when we're gone". Question asked the band then move into an unexpected but most welcome fusion flavoured middle section, boasting an equally unexpected mellow vocal, then just when you about to reach for your smoking jacket and light up one of your exotic
jazz cigarettes all hell breaks loose and we are thrown back into a pit of heavy
sludge and
doom, what a ride!
On the edges of extreme heaviness yet spliced with moments of restraint and serenity "
Grieve" is a powerful and uncompromising album that picks its targets and hits them with unerring accuracy, as we stated in our blurb on the bands
Bandcamp page "
there have been some absolute bangers released this year (2023) and this album is one of them"
Check it out ...
© 2023 Frazer Jones
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