TRILLION TON BERYLLIUM SHIPS ~ THE MIND LIKE FIRE UNBOUND .. review

Lincoln, Nebraska combo Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships, Jeremy Warner (guitar, clean vocals); Justin Kamal (drums, harsh vocals) and Karlin Warner (bass), have interrupted their travels through time and space to bring us yet another doom laden collection of tunes packed with insights and tales of life travelling the cosmos. The album in question goes by the name "The Mind Like Fire Unbound" and is the bands third full length album, unless of course you count the very lengthy two song "Destination Ceres Station: Reefersleep" (in which case it would be their fourth). Either third or fourth "The Mind Like Fire Unbound" is, in Desert Psychlist's opinion, their best release to date.

Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships (TTBS) are a band who like to go big and they go truly epic right from the off with opening track "BUGS", a fourteen minute plus monster of a song chronicling the invasion of a distant world with the lyrics giving the listener viewpoints from both sides of the conflict, both viewpoints played out against a  musical backdrop of crushing low'n'slow stoner doomic groove. Cleverly the first part of the song finds our invaders  questioning their motivation for their invasion in clean melodic vocal tones while harsh guttural tones are used to represent those who are the subject of said invasion, a trick that creates a sort of rock operatic scenario. Things get even more intense further on down the line when, possibly as a reflection on AI's growing influence on just about everything, all humanity is taken out of the equation and a computerised voice becomes the dominant voice of the invading force. Next up is "Black Forest"  a dark thrumming tome anchored in the doomic mire by subterranean bass lines and busy brutal percussion that is then decorated in low grizzled vocal harshness around which swirling guitar motifs and crunching power chords make their presence felt. Things begin a little post-metallic and ambient for next song "Infinite Inertia" with a lone ringing guitar the only instrumentation present until the bass and drums slowly join in on an achingly low slow and heavy groove decorated in a clean see-sawing vocal melody, those post metallic textures returning briefly around the songs three quarter mark to herald in an unsettling passage of fizzy drone which is then supplanted by a return to the songs initial stoner doom dynamic only this time tinted with an element of proggish complexity. The tongue in cheek  "I Hate Space" follows and finds TTBS looking at life through the eyes of  a boots on the ground space cadet, the reluctant traveller bemoaning endless missions and a lack of recognition for the job he is asked to do, there is a air of playfulness going on here that is reminiscent of early Hawkwind which is never a bad thing. TTBS bring things to a close with title song "The Mind Like Fire Unbound" a sprawling doomic tome that starts out dark dank and atmospheric but then morphs into a chugging almost stoner metallic riff fest before then suddenly changing tack again and taking on almost prog like hues in its final third, a fittingly epic finale to what is a quietly epic album. 

If lyrical themes of time and space are your thing and you like those themes to be supported by grooves that are mixture of mid-tempo and achingly slow stonerized doom and metal then "The Mind Like Fire Unbound" is most definitely going to be your jam. So fire up the dilithium crystals. set the controls for the heart of the sun and let Trillion Ton Beryllium Ships carry you away on a journey to the outer limits of the cosmos. 

Check 'em out ....  

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