|
This
project doesn’t only have the coolest moniker ever, but
have also just released one of the greatest albums of
2009. This my friends, is fucking MUSIC. Beautiful,
natural and organic. It’s aural grandiosity in full
bloom not by its heaviness or volume but by its soulful
depth. Terminal Lovers are a colorful call for
attention, but shall only be perceived by those who dare
go beyond the mundane. As Eyes Burn Clean is just too
good for the masses. Too abstract for the pop addict and
too layered for the musical simpleton. Regardless who
this is exposed to; this will only appeal to the good
ones.
As the music
of Terminal Lovers takes from many genres we can’t go on without
citing some of these. One would be stoner rock. This is by
default. Yes, there is nary a bluesy note here, but the density
of these songs recalls one of stoner rock’s best traits. To that
let’s add that the Lovers’ 2003 release Drama Pit & Loan was released by
mostly stoner doom label
Shifty records. Anyway, there is also a significant quotient of
psychedelic rock. That’s undeniable. With so
much layering and so many sounds going on it’s impossible not to
think of all that goes on in an altered mind. Not much wah wah
in these places, just blankets of noise, kilos of feedback and
ounces of sonic debris. That load is constant. The krautock dose
is also clearer than the artwork on the cover. The natural way
in which the songs flow may evidence that most of these songs
were born from jamming. The absolute experimental sounds wink
and nod to progressive rock more than to the ‘pop’ influences
claimed in the press clip.
Terminal
Lovers hail from Cleveland and in its ranks we can find
musicians who have played in bands as disparate as Midnight,
Boulder, Keelhaul and Scarcity of Tanks. I don’t think that
knowing this would tell you anything about how this band sounds
like. This is far more avant garde and experimental. The tunes
flow and float and slowly reveal themselves. In “Ion Gate” we get a
watery sensibility. There is a jazzy feeling, but the tune is not
cluttered and the drums are anything but that. There is
far more percussion than a mere drummer though and the guitar dwindling adds to the
jamming factor. And in “Sacred and the Man” I got teary eyed
reminiscing of how Monster Magnet once sounded like. Hands down;
stellar record.
Official Site
MySpace
|
|
