Some of you out there may recall Desert Psychlist waxing lyrical about the merits of Polymerase's 2021 debut release "Unostentatious" a mix of, mostly instrumental, spacious heavy psych and stoner rock fuzziness that garnered glowing reviews not only from us at The Psychlist but also from Stoner Hive and Fuzzy Cracklins (The Swamp Records). The band's next move was to put out "Dreams and Realities I" a release that saw the band delivering four songs with similar musical dynamics to those found on "Unostentatious", but this time with more vocals, those vocals tending to sway between clean and hazy and throaty and harsh. The release also contained, for those that like their grooves without vocals, instrumental versions of the same four songs. Polymerase's next release was "Dreams and Realities II" and saw the band repeating the vocalised songs followed by instrumental versions trick they pulled off on "I", but also toying with elements of krautrock and experimental avant-garde. This month (May 2025) sees the band release "Mindspace" an album still rooted in the psych and stoner rock that has become Polymerase's default setting but with more emphasis on the more spatial post-metal aspects of their sound.
"Mindspace" opens its account with "93 Billion Light Years" a song that begins with sampled narrative from a NASA moon mission and finishes in a wave of heavily effect laden guitar noodling, it's a short number but an effective one. "Divine Reefer" follows, this is a hazy "weedian" flavoured opus that has a low-key Sleep - like vibe, heavy but not overly thunderous or crushing, the vocals here are delivered hazy and monotonic at first but take on a gruff harshness later on down the line, these vocals are accompanied by a strange but totally mesmerising high pitched whirling effect that adds an air of otherworldliness to proceedings, at first this effect is hardly noticeable but once heard soon becomes hard to unhear. Third song "Incense for the Beast" blends eastern tinted jazz fusion and funky lysergic liquidity with vocals of a more sludge like bearing to create a hybrid sound that on paper might read like a recipe for disaster but as a musical piece works perfectly. Next up is "Space Child" a deliciously bouncy instrumental featuring licks and motifs of an unmistakably Oriental origin, guitarist Vincent Jose's soloing here is sublime, not quite what you might call Floydian but certainly leaning in that direction while "Crows and Doves" shows that harsh vocals CAN co-exist in the same musical spaces as lilting hazy clean melodies especially if they are sharing those spaces with elements of sludge, shoegaze and heavy psych. Vocals for next number "Cosmic Wanderlust" are delivered monastic and monotonic resulting in the song feeling quite spiritual, its a trick many bands working in the field of stoner-doom employ to give their grooves a more ritualistic and satanic vibe however the grooves supporting these tones, to our ears, tend to lean less toward doom and more towards early British goth and post-punk. Penultimate number "Interplanetary Echoes" is a deliciously throbbing but not overly heavy tome, graced with mostly clean hazy vocals, that along its musical journey shares common ground with the bands like Elder, Astronomie, King Buffalo and others of that ilk while still managing to retain its own unique identity. Final track "Downward Spiral" finds Polymerase wrapping things up with a song that needs to be heard to be truly appreciated, an atmospheric slow growing opus, graced with a mixture of diverse vocal tones, that builds layer by layer towards a caustic crescendo and then fades into deafening silence.
We have been referring to Polymerase here as a band but reading between the lines it would probably be closer to the truth to call them a project, a project that our research leads us to believe is the brain-child of guitarist/vocalist Vincent Jose. It is Jose who seems to decide the direction of each release, it is Jose who seemingly writes the majority of the music and lyrics and it is also Jose who seems to choose who plays on a Polymerase release. For "Mindspace" Jose is joined by Allen Paul Galiga on bass and Francis Ilagan on drums a combination that has resulted in what, in our opinion, is Polymerase's best release to date.
Check it out ....
© 2025 Frazer Jones
No comments:
Post a Comment