We all know the story of how British rock bands/musicians like Cream, Led Zeppelin Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall and others took the blues repackaged it, re-imagined it, electrified it and sold it back to the USA, and that even the great Jimi Hendrix had to relocate to the UK because Britain was the one place in the world (at that time) where the music that he was making could be guaranteed an appreciative audience. What many do not know is that while this was all going on a bunch of pill popping hippies in West London, who were also at the time rooted in the blues, were experimenting with enhancing their recorded grooves with electronic effects, poetry and cosmic themes, that band were called Hawkwind and those experiments resulted in the band almost single handedly inventing the sound we now call "Space Rock", a sound very much influential in shaping the grooves of some of today's bands, one of which is the subject of this review.
Now Liverpool England's Amon Acid, whose album we are reviewing today, are not exactly what you could call a "space rock band", the grooves they display for our entertainment on their latest album "Paradigm Shift" are a little too close to the doomic side for that , but their sound certainly owes a huge debt to the grooves those acid dropping hippies from Ladbroke Grove were experimenting with all those years ago.
As we stated in our intro piece Amon Acid, SarantisCharvas (vocals/guitar/tzouras/synthesizers/drum programming) and Briony Charvas (bass), are primarily a doom band but they are also so much more than just that.
Swirling synths swooping in and out of thick reverberating dark, dank guitar refrains and the ringing strings of traditional Greek acoustic instrumentation are the basis of Amon Acid's sound, a sound given extra depth and gravitas by Briony Charvas' huge thrumming bass, this resulting blend of cosmic tinted occult rock and acid doom is perfectly complimented by some quite brilliant drum programming from Sarantis Charvas which when combined with his clipped, almost gothic/indie, vocal tones gives the bands sound, in places, an almost krautrock/industrial undercurrent. Apart from the obvious Hawkwind comparisons, that listeners are bound to make given the spacey synthesised effects that make their presence felt on each and every one of the albums six songs, hidden among the heavy gloom you may also detect shades of UK goth rockers Bauhaus and Alien Sex Fiend as well as flavours of "Seventeen Seconds/Faith" era Cure, albeit drenched in psychedelic colours and slowed down to a more sedate and lumbering doomic pace. It is, when considering the somewhat downbeat aspects of some of the music that flew under the "Goth" banner in the eighties, not surprising that some aspects of goth's dourness and gloominess should translate to the doom we listen to today, it is very much to Amon Acid's credit that they seamlessly integrate these aspects into their doom while also still managing to shoe in elements of space and heavy psych. That aside, each song on the album is an experience in itself, from the ominous and creepy "Intro" to the atmospheric and epic title track, "Paradigm Shift", Amon Acid take you on a cosmic trip that is rooted in doom but is shaped by so many other influences and musical genres, it is a head spinning journey you will never want to forget or, for that matter, ever want to end!
Having not seen the band in the live environment Desert Psychlist is at odds to understand how Amon Acid can pull off such a complex and intricate sound with just the two of them up there on a stage, the fact that they do so is testament to not only their skill as musicians but also their skill as technicians. Hopefully Desert Psychlist will get to witness this one day but until that happens we are happy to just turn off the lights, plug in the lava lamp and stick "Paradigm Shift" on repeat ad-infinitum.
Check it out ....
© 2020 Frazer Jones
4/10
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