I wasn’t expecting to like this because, generally, I rarely do stoner-rock stuff these days. So I don’t know why I played it. But I played it.
Which led me to wondering what it was about it, but then I remembered something I said to my mate the other day, a thought that I’ve held for a long while now – if music resonates with you then you don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to justify it to anyone. If you like it, you like it.
I like this.
Well, now, here’s a thing.
After being hat tipped by the mighty Heathen, I went to the Riot Season bandcamp, I did, and checked out the teaser tune. And I quite liked it, but wanted to hear more before deciding whether I wanted to buy it or not. So I rooted around (alright, then, I looked slightly further down the results page) and found the Menimals original bandcamp page which also has a self titled album on it, with the same opening track. And the whole damn thing was listenable, and the whole damn thing was mighty fine indeed.
But here’s the aforementioned thing: apart from the opening track, the tracklistings on these two self titled albums do not match. Are they actually different albums?
I hope so, because self titled number one is just so darn good. Dark and menacing, to be sure, this isn’t an uplifting set of music. Not guaranteed to break the ice at parties. Imagine The Bad Seeds doing the mid-90s Bristol sound – Tricky at his 
most menacing, perhaps. One of the songs had me thinking of Underworld doing The Bad Seeds with the latter’s instrumentation, and the final song becomes really intense, a bit like Hey Colossus in their sludgier days. I also find myself reminded of the intersection of jazz with electronica and trip hop, for example The Lifeforce Trio and Triosk, although that may be more due to atmospheric reasons.
Anywho, I’ve embedded the original one since you can listen to all of that. And if you look at the artists description on the page…
With a hat tip to my friend for putting them in his 2015 playoffs and then knocking them out in the first round…
If you cross Hey Colossus at their sludgy prime with Team (no. 2 in that list on the link) then you might get something like Early Mammal, although they are pretty distinctly themselves. Like so many great albums, it has the feel of a journey, a ride into regions you didn’t realise were there. I understand they recorded all of this over a 2 day period, hence the sonic cohesion to it.
My favourite tune is the fabulous ‘Glad is Night,’ even though they fade it out (fade out is a crime! alright its not a crime. I just don’t like it) – it has a feel not unlike Kyuss. I like the whole damn thing, though, and I’m beginning to think I need to spend some quality time with Riot Season records seeing how many great bands have had releases on this label.
And of course, a sound magician is a Mighty God. But you knew that already.
There’s been an absolute glut of music in my world, coinciding with reduced time to listen to it all. Even Maximum Rock’n’roll have got their best of 2015 list out a month early, and I thought that no matter how late I got mine out, I’d get it out before them. Ho hum. It will be with you maybe next week.
Or not.
Soundbergs 