It is probably fair to say that we did not make an immediate connection with the new album from UK based rockers Desert Clouds yet there was a certain lure which took us back to its atmospheric embrace with intrigue and enthusiasm. It was an essence which grew richer as band and release, Nothing Beyond The Cage, blossomed by the listen into a fascinating and increasingly persuasive proposition.
Formed in 2008 in Naples, Italy, Desert Clouds relocated to London two years later. It was a time which saw instability in the band’s line-up though things were far more settled by the time 2017 EP, Time Distortions, was released; an encounter which drew strong attention the way of the band, praise carrying interest which was only built upon by subsequent singles in Speed of Light and Under Tons, both unveiled last year. It is easy to imagine that Nothing Beyond The Cage will only increase the reputation and stature of the quartet within the UK rock scene with its multi-flavoured and atmospherically provocative adventure.
Nurtured in a mix of grunge, stoner, doom, psych and alternative rock, the band’s sound is a seductive trespass as forceful and mercurial as it is plaintively intimate and brooding. Often it comes over within Nothing Beyond The Cage like a raw Doors meets a predacious Kyuss aligned to the emotive howls of early Coldplay amidst the soulful winds of Soundgarden but emerging if not boldly unique certainly clearly individual to Desert Clouds.
The album opens up with The Outcast Trail (See you Chris), a sullenly thoughtful ballad built on a web of melodic imagination and vocal emotion which roars like a funeral pyre in fiery crescendos. Unsurprisingly there are thick Soundgarden hues to the outstanding track, a tribute to Chris Cornell, with its sonic and emotive heat evocative and invasive, its enterprise seriously magnetic led by the inescapably compelling vocals.
The following Speed Of Light opens with a just as dark air, the bass of Julius Caesar a portentous throb within the wiry web and earthier riffs of guitarists/vocalists David Land and Val L. Wallace. With every passing note and vocal lure, the song’s intensity and drama increases, brewing up into a controlled yet feral blaze spiked by the predacious beats of Andrea Orabona. Though it lacked the spark of its outstanding predecessor for our appetite, the song enticed and lingered behind its wake before next up Take Off harassed the senses with its moody almost irritable melodic roar. Grooved tendrils vine the track with increasing captivation, their incandescent lures lava-esque within the song’s muggy climate.
The calmer but mercurial balladry of Under Tons tempts next, its tenacious croon as untamed as it is intimately restrained with every moment contrasted within another twist courtesy of craft and imagination before Overmore springs its desert/psych rock exploits on ears. A certain QOTSA lining adds to a swift appeal while its successor The Judgement carries a Coldplay/Muse like spicing which grew more flavoursome by the listen. All three tracks flourished over time whilst equally sharing the, at times understated but certainly not hidden, broad palette of sound the band creates with.
Final track is Whistling In The Rain, an almost bestial encounter in its prowling gait and ursine-esque growl but lava-like in its sonic climate and scorching winds. From vocals to guitar, rhythms to atmospheric conjuring, the song is another mighty highlight to Nothing Beyond The Cage, a release which we might have needed time to take to but have with real eagerness once we clicked.
Nothing Beyond The Cage is released January 18th.
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Pete RingMaster 17/01/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The outstanding Party Shark Shake is next up, the song as the band’s actual name triggered by a book, no surprise here, about sharks by Susan Casey. You can almost feel the warm liquor soaked sand between the toes as the track stomps through ears, the swell of its melodic tides dragging the imagination and hips into the dangerous currents and depths below the biting dynamics of the song. Across the riveting attack, it builds up to rousing crescendos though at no moment is it anything less than an over powering incitement to body, spirit, and imagination. Imaging The Ghastly Ones and The Trashmen in collusion with The Damned and The Revillos and you get a whiff of the album’s greatest moment.
With no other hand but Hughes involved from writing and playing to recording and producing, the EP opens up with the truly irresistible Poorly Boy. The track rises up with drama and attractive tension in its tone, bringing its thick hues together to burst into an instantly rousing and infectious affair led by the potent voice of Hughes. Though under control, there is tempestuousness to the track which emerges in twists and an unpredictable enterprise that just gripped attention and a quickly forming appetite for the Hypnosister adventure. There is a touch of The Horrors to the song in certain moments too but merely one of the alluring hues in its individuality.
Next up is Walls away, a far calmer affair with a melodic temperament which captivated from its initial lure. It has a raw undercurrent though which accentuates its elegance breeding, that aforementioned unpredictability lurking at every corner while Slaínte (Salud, dinero, amor) has a Celtic lining to its infectious festivities; an Irish Gaelic inspiration which again had the body bouncing across its primarily instrumental canter sharing “good health”.
The following Before I Fall makes a similarly magnetic entrance, the bass of this time Fagernes walking magnetically through ears with the melodic intimation of the guitars for company. Like a psych washed fusion of Dead Can Dance, My Bloody Valentine, and Fields Of The Nephilim, the song fascinated and tantalised in equal measure. Its heavy emotion and senses wrapping shadows unavoidably infested the imagination but equally the song tempted the body into calm but definite involvement even as its darkness consumed. The fact that the song did not bring the same lust as for its predecessor or successor is simply down to their might, the song only magnetism.
Infestation one leads to number two in the shape of Earth Shaker (Which Doobie U Be). Instantly its muscle has bones shuddering, its sonic toxicity the imagination hooked as the listener is thrust into a whirl of melodic temptation and boisterous catchiness with a Rob Zombie-esque tinge. A robust rock ‘n’ roll waltz bound in stoner/psych dexterity, the mouth-watering escapade is soon outdone by the following Alaskan Thunder F*ck where a maze of melodic strands around rhythmic trespasses are thrust through ears with insatiable creative adrenaline. From vocals to grooves, hooks to rhythmic badgering, the song hits the spot dead centre yet is still in turn eclipsed by the outstanding Shocker. If the previous track was a hungry nagging its successor is an infernal itch with the most salacious row of hooks rich in aural bait. Neck muscles are worked out, limbs stretched from start to finish, the track so infectious and manipulative it is almost vindictive.
It is a great start to proceedings which Morally High continues with its spicily grooved stroll. Carrying similar essences and flavours to its predecessor in its own individual way, the track is equally as infectious and magnetic with again classic and modern textures rubbing excitedly again each other within its controlled yet salacious swing. As the music, Coxon has a snarl to his croon, attitude dripping from every syllable and note before My Rock And Roll steps up to coax bad behaviour with its blues skinned devilry entangled in more of the great guitar enterprise which veins the whole of Care Plan For The Soul.