The Black Angels - Phosphene Dream
I first happened upon these Austin city surrealist rockers in 2006, right in time for their first full length release, "Passover". That very album restored my faith in modern psychedelia (no small feat for an outspoken anti-hippie such as myself). Not since the Nuggets CD box sets had I heard such great, rattling guitar tones and dripping wet reverb. I remember in vivid detail the first time I popped their CD in the car stereo and was promptly poked right in the cosmic "third eye". Now they have returned and I must say, they have brought the extra spicy mustard this time!
The album opener "Bad Vibrations" provides us with spaced out, eerie sounds. Things smashing and clattering in the background and a sudden increase in tempo that jacks things up in the best way possible. "Haunting At 1300 McKinley" conjures the standard 12-bar blues, but then shifts into gear by flipping the fuzzbox on and letting the drummer let loose. "Yellow Elevator #2" features another inescapable set of riffs with the guitars and organs intermingling. This song makes you wanna get go find the nearest shaman and get yourself spiritually awakened with it's excellent harmonies, hip-shaking rhythm. The band brings out the extended family for the sing-along track "Sunday Afternoon". Listen for the inexplicable, warbling alien noises and the tight vocal hooks. "Entrance Song" features deadpan vocals which somehow manage to be cool and groovy.
"River of Blood" and the title track "Phosphene Dream" are probably the weakest tracks on the entire album. I'm curious why they decided to name the album after an obvious filler cut. Not bad tracks, but somehow lacking the same luster as the rest of the album. But never fear, for they bring it all back home for the finale. "True Believers" and "Telephone" has the band showing their influences. Both tracks carry the distinct flavor of 60s garage / Jefferson Airplane intonations and you have to dig the jangling, psych-out boot stomp. Things take a turn for the weird and droney with sitar-effected guitars and you feel like you're brain is about to vibrate out of your skull (that is if you listen to these albums properly - at full fucking volume). It's all just in time for the final track "The Sniper" to slide in, slow 'er down, and introduce the real groove. This could easily have been a song from the Easy Rider soundtrack with the tremolo guitars and tambourine rattling.
It is often tempting to write off bands in this vein as mere "revivalist" acts and move on your jolly way, but I think there is much more to this act than that. It's true they show their influences casually, but since when is that a bad thing? They've most likely done their studying of The Flaming Groovies, 13th Floor Elevators and the Count Five, but I sense something deeper in them. There are more modern elements of bands like The Cult, Love and Rockets and Jesus and Mary Chain. The Black Angels take the shimmering exuberance of Vietnam era protest music and take it to a darker place. I am left wanting much more at the end of their albums, and that is a phenomenon I've not experienced with rock and roll very often. The Black Angels deserve a congratulatory pat on the back just for managing to capture my interest for a full album's length, let alone making me want to give them a second listen. And a third, a fourth and on and on until our eternal, sonic oblivion.
http://www.theblackangels.com/
