GREEN LUNG ~ THIS HEATHEN LAND .... review

The excitement Desert Psychlist felt when Green Lung, Tom Templar (vocals); Scott Black (guitars); Joseph Ghast (bass); John Wright (keys) and Matt Wiseman (drums), announced they were releasing a new album reminded us of those days in the 70's when we we would feel that same level of anticipation for a new release from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Deep Purple, a tingling excitement that would not go away until you were actually holding that said release in your clammy little hands. Of course there were times when that album did not quite deliver on your expectations and you had to accept that what you were now holding in your hands was not the soaring eagle you had been expecting but was actually a bit of a turkey, but then that is one of the pitfalls of being a music obsessive. Thankfully this is a situation not yet experienced by Green Lung devotees, everything this band have released to date has been a step up in strength and quality from its predecessor and that is again the case with new album "This Heathen Land" (Nuclear Blast Records) this is no turkey, this is a bird of paradise.

 

"Prologue", a short narrated invitation, opens proceedings and is swiftly followed by "The Forest Church", this is a classic Green Lung opus packed solid with everything we already love about this band, swirling keyboard textures, crunching chord progressions and a mix of thunderous and intricate drumming wrapped around a vocal that constantly shifts between a mournful croon and a melodic howl, a good start we think you will agree but things get even better. "Mountain Throne" tells of an unholy procession leaving their caves to "do the devil's work" against a backdrop of hard driven heavy rock that among its many charms boasts guitar textures and solos that would not sound out of place on a an album by Thin Lizzy or Judas Priest while "Maxine (Witch Queen)" is a song Ghost's Tobias Forge would have given his right arm to have written, catchy direct and sporting a to die for vocal melody, it has fan favourite written all over it. "One for Sorrow" follows and here we find Green Lung mixing reflective lyrical content with grooves that simper and swoon one minute and spit and snarl the next, the addition of an ascending/descending keyboard motif over both dynamics giving the song a weird but interesting off-kilter vibe. The guitar and drum intro to next song "Song of the Stones" has more than a passing resemblance to the intro to Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" but that similarity comes to an end when the song then continues along the lines of a rural lament replete with woodwind flavoured keyboard accompaniment, gentle and quite beautiful the song also features a stunning blues tinted guitar solo guaranteed to send shivers of delight running down the spine of anyone who hears it. "The Ancient Ways" sees Green Lung adding elements of heavy psych and prog to their sound while still staying true to their signature dynamics and is followed by "Hunter in the Sky" a song with more than a touch of Uriah Heep in its sonic make-up, both vocally and musically. Finally we are presented with "Oceans of Time" a lyrical serenade to Mina, the schoolmistress in Bram Stoker's Dracula who becomes not only the vampire's victim but also its downfall. Despite possessing many of the dynamics that have become Green Lung's calling card this song is nonetheless quite different from anything the band have attempted before in that it has an almost theatrical feel to it in parts, who knows maybe these guys have a rock opera in them.

 

What Green Lung bring to the table with "This Heathen Land" cannot be labelled as occult, doom or stoner because it is so much more than that, if you put this release in a time machine and sent it back to the seventies the rock fans of that time would be immediately asking "why have we not heard this before" and "where can we buy the album", it really is that good. Many people think rock music can only be deemed "classic" if it has been around for certain period of time, Green Lung disprove that theory by making classic rock for the here and now. and hopefully the coming future.
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© 2023 Frazer Jones