Caustic Minds – Black Oil For A Soul

Jul29

With a rather potent reputation in tow courtesy of their highly energetic live performances, alternative rock outfit Caustic Minds has a certain buzz brewing up around them and one sure to be only accelerated by the recent release of the band’s debut EP. Five tracks strong, Black Oil For A Soul is quite simply an encounter which makes you just stop and pay attention.

Formed in Germany in 2007, Berlin based Caustic Minds has a background as rich as their sound. Vocalist Laura Jiménez Alvarez comes from Mexico City, while guitarist Daniel Viseras Calvache is Granada in Spain hailing. With bassist Michiel Sybers born in Antwerpen, Belgium and drummer Chris Crabtree British/German bred, it is a cosmopolitan mix as flavoursome as the blend of hard rock and indie enticement they conjure up between them. Over time the band has had references to the likes of Queens Of The Stone Age, The Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys, and Black Sabbath shared upon their sound though for our ears Black Oil For A Soul tantalises and captivates like a hybrid fusion of Karn8 and My Baby.

Persistently compelling in its enterprise and bold in its character, the EP immediately had ears and imagination enslaved with opener Eyes On Fire. Never relinquishing its favourite track grip from its first escapade, the song instantly harries and tempts with a stalking fusion of stabbing beats and siren scythes of guitar. Instantly magnetic, the track only escalates its lures as a swagger breaks out in a sure stroll ridden by the similarly captivating tones of Alvarez. With a groove which infests hips without invitation and an instinctive roar that demands unity, the imagination soaked track easily gripped body and appetite.

Though for personal tastes the release never quite reached those major heights again, its presence and enterprise is a lofty adventure that continues to beguile, next up Baby Doll providing a fiery blaze of punk shaped rock ‘n’ roll with progressive breath to its winds as melodic seduction fuels its great unpredictability.

Similarly Destroyer teased and taunted the imagination; its immediate launch part prowl part strut and all fascination. Intoxicating in its bluesy charm and eye balling in its attitude, the temptress of a song proved another irresistible holler which never fed expectations before Blacklist brought its own beguiling lures to the party. Rising on spirals of sonic and melodic heat, the track is another which teases as it tempts. Like flames in a fire stirring thoughts and gripping attention as its spellbinding hold sprung creative shapes the song simply flirted with the imagination as vocals and individual enterprise trapped ears.

The EP closes up with Carry On, another moment within the EP that enthralled with ease as its seductive moves and shameless grooves toyed alongside the ever compelling barracuda toned bass of Sybers. As each track and the EP as a whole, the closer is all sensuous bait and steamy endeavour honed into rock ‘n’ roll that shamelessly and skilfully entices and firmly attracts.

Black Oil For A Soul more than suggests that the boisterous murmur around Caustic Minds is sound and about to boil over beyond the German borders the band is already putting under their spell and as a bonus ‘name your own price’ release on the band’s Bandcamp site, it is one encounter no one should be ignoring.

Black Oil For A Soul is available now @ https://causticminds.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/causticminds/

Pete RingMaster 29/07/2019

Devil Electric – Self Titled

Oct4

Looking for some new dark and heavy rock ‘n’ roll, especially some with flames of lava-esque blues within encroaching doom bred shadows? Then there is a good chance that the debut album from Australian heavy rockers Devil Electric will have the senses buzzing. Offering nine predacious slabs of seventies inspired heavy goodness with a virulent catchiness in its grooves alone, the release declares a new mouth-watering force in town.

Hailing from Melbourne in the midst of 2015, Devil Electric swiftly began honing a potent reputation for their sound and live presence, the latter seeing the quartet play alongside the likes of Truckfighters, The Sword, Kadaver, and Endless Boogie over time. Last year saw the well-received, highly praised release of their first EP, The Gods Below, which saw the band subsequently lured by and signing with German label Kozmik Artifactz for the release of their swiftly gripping self-titled album.

It opens up with Monologue (Where You Once Walked), quickly raising intrigue and appetite for spicy portentous rock ‘n’ roll with its opening prowl. Entangled in juicy grooves and driven by raptorial riffs and rhythms, the track soon steps into a seriously contagious stroll, thumping beats and intrusively pulsating bass lures a bestial temptation and grooves a fiery vining of the senses. In the midst of the instinctive seduction the richly magnetic tones of vocalist Pierina O’Brien roar; her voice another irresistible focal point among so many in the song fair to say.

The starter is glorious, almost reason alone to check out the album but quickly matched by the equally compelling exploits of Shadowman. As quickly as the first grips ears and imagination, its successor swings on them with irresistible dexterity and endeavour, grooves again winding around the appetite as rhythms belligerently unload their intent. Marching through ears with an antagonistically commanding air, the track proceeds to spread fiery fingers, guitarist Christos Athanasias spinning a web of flirtation as the blended trespass of bassist Tom Hulse and drummer Mark Van De Beek court and invade the senses.

The sultry flirtations of Lady Velvet wind their charms around the listener next, O’Brien leading the heated vines of the guitar with her beckoning tones. Alongside her Hulse’s voice makes a potent backing, always understated in the mix but a firm texture which works perfectly with O’ Brien’s. Ultimately the song maybe does not have the same thrust as its predecessors, preferring more of a smouldering attack but it too is created from a tapestry of sonic imagination and rhythmic enticement this time with just a sense of physical rabidity involved.

Acidic Fire similarly has a fire borne climate and siren like call to its body, O’Brien the central protagonist but more than matched by the sonic weaving of Athanasias. In many ways the song crawls over the body and psyche, enjoyably searing the senses before the bestial gait and muscle of Monolith brings its own instrumental sludge thick crawl to bear. After its softening up of defences, the mercurial air of The Dove And The Serpent immerses ears, its climate soaked in danger and seduction as it dances in ears like a sonic equivalent of festivities bred from a mix of venomous isolation a la The Wicker Man and The Witches.

Both The Sacred Machine and Lilith with their individual trespasses keep the rich temptation flowing, the first with its invasive yet bewitching blaze of sound and intensity, the second with its haunting atmosphere and exotic mystique. The latter is an instrument which swiftly has the imagination conjuring whilst seeming to set up the atmosphere of the equally enticing and occasionally salaciously moody Hypnotica. The closing track and the band’s new single, the song is six minutes plus of flaming ambiences, emotive intensity, and sonic webbing; all primed to seduce and enslave the senses and in turn the imagination.

It is a mouth-watering end to a striking at times ear withering but persistently thrilling first full outing with Devil Electric; a band seemingly drawing on the inspirations of bands such as Black Sabbath, Graveyard, The Dead Weather, Jess and the Ancient Ones, and Blood Ceremony but forging their own individual incantations.

The Devil Electric album is available now via Kozmik Artifactz @ https://devilelectric.bandcamp.com/album/devil-electric

http://www.devilelectric.com/ https://www.facebook.com/devilelectric https://twitter.com/_devilelectric_

Pete RingMaster 02/10/2017

The Eastern Swell – One Day, A Flood

Sep15

the-eastern-swell_RingMasterReview

If one word had to be used to describe One Day, A Flood, the debut album from Scottish quartet The Eastern Swell, it has to be spellbinding. From the first listen the tapestry of genres which shape its songs catches the imagination but it is with subsequent listens that the real bewitchment blossoms. Inspired by and weaving together essences from the likes of progressive folk, experimental rock, and neo-psychedelia among numerous other flavours, The Eastern Swell combines poetic storytelling and melodic suggestiveness in one impressive captivation.

Edinburgh formed, The Eastern Swell emerged in 2014; the Anglo-Scottish foursome of guitarist/vocalist Chris Reeve, vocalist Lainie Urquhart, bassist/vocalist Neil Collman, and drummer Andy Glover first going by the name of Lainie & The Crows. With a well-received EP, name change, and the signing with excellent Scottish label Stereogram Recordings under their belts, the band set about creating their debut album with producer Pete Harvey (Modern Studies, Meursault, and King Creosote) in his own Pumpkinfield Studios. Themed by tales of “about vulnerability and the frailties of being human”, One Day, A Flood casts individual reflections linked by the underlying premise and a fluid movement from one song to another. Enjoyably working individually, the album’s tracks also impressively create a single experience which is just as potent, maybe even more so, taken in one listen. With self-admitted inspirations to the band, when creating One Day, A Flood, including the likes of Syd Barrett, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Fairport Convention, King Crimson, Pixies, Thee Oh Sees, Cat Power, and Gillian Welch, it is fair to say that the album is a rich collusion of styles and flavours honed into one kaleidoscope of imagination.

The album opens with the outstanding Rattling Bones, a track drenched in drama and emotive intensity. A sonic mist first encases ears, this quickly followed by a gloriously evocative riff soon joined by an equivalent lure from the bass. A sudden drop into a sombre air of melancholy with a dour but tempting melody, as the warm tones of Urquhart caresses ears and thoughts, then enjoyably wrong foots. Soon though, the track develops a lively stroll to its gait, marked by the bold roll of rhythms as provocative strings from guest Pete Harvey further toy with the imagination. The song is superb, a seamless patchwork of enterprise and creative hues setting the scene and character of the album.

What’s Done Is Done is next up; sharing the dark throated riffs and bass tone of its predecessor as essences of psychedelia and late sixties/early seventies melodic rock merge and the great blend of harmonies across Urquhart, Reeve, and Collman embrace. It oozes a seductive touch with every exotic sigh, warm surges and electric impulses uniting in a gentle but dynamic rousing of ears and spirit. The excellent proposition is followed and matched in temptation by 1000 Yard Stare where the vocal mix again grabs attention as they immediately cradle ears while psych and folk pop streams of enterprise kiss the imagination. Crescendos of lo fi intensity contrast and work perfectly with this golden glow of voice and melody, the compelling encounter almost tempestuous at times in its Wicker Man like climate and emotion.

The acoustic grace and warm melancholy of Temples is next, Urquhart’s voice uniting with the evocative strains of the cello before brighter guitar melodies and quaintly lit keys dance in ears. Its captivating low key proposal is echoed in the individually bold serenade of Muckish Mountain straight after before Too Little, Too Late reveals its own swing of rhythmic hips and melodic gaiety. Once more the fine and contrasting blend of male and female vocals seduces, a match emulated in the dark throes of the rhythms and radiant smile of guitars and keys. With a subsequent hook to lust after, the song is an intimate yet all-embracing festival of sound and energy providing another major highlight to One Day, A Flood.

The fuzzier air of Quick As A Whip makes a swift engaging between song and ears, harmonies and warm textures only reinforcing its potency before the album’s best moment arrives in the shape of Dancing Zombie Blues. Like a devilish concoction bred from The Dead Weather, Bird Blobs, and Old House Playground, the song rattles and rolls with gothic folk majesty, coming to an abrupt end from which a sonic wash brews and develops into closing enticement Run Down Country Palace. Its nature is of similar breeding though once its raw climate is set, the track’s electric veil parts for the reflective charms of vocals, strings, and a folk honed melodic appraisal. As all tracks though, things are never straight forward, The Eastern Swell creating tapestries that perpetually move and evolve.

Another reward provide is that One Day, A Flood never seems to stop growing in ears and imagination listen by listen, creating an adventure very easy to recommend from a band in The Eastern Swell that we will surely be hearing much more of ahead.

One Day, A Flood is out September 16th via Stereogram Recordings.