Electric Heavy Land

In general, Acid Mothers Temple take the spirit of long-jam 60s freak-out music and reinvent it for the 21st century. All the song titles and nods towards classic rock ultimately don't mean much, or are allusions not necessary to appreciating their music, and I actually had to pick a band they remind me of, then I'd say they seem most like Hawkwind, but only when Hawkwind gets into one of their long, riff-repeating zone-outs. Because this is music that truly puts the freak back in freak-out. Kawabata's guitar, for instance, sounds like it's the size of Godzilla, and the band is the size of a small planet. This is not the peace and love groove-fest of the sixties; the music is jarring, overwhelmingly chaotic and noise-driven, and aims to be literally ear-blowing if not also mind-blowing. But what it shares with the sixties is a visionary sensibility, like looking directly into the universal knowledge of the god-mind, or something like that. It is not ironic at all; it is dead-serious, and rampagingly, enthusiastically so without being starry-eyed (as one could say critically of sixties music). It is not "ugly" music and it is not designed to aggravate you, like some noise rock is. It's definitely meditative music, but the meditation is the kind done by standing on top of the highest mountain on Mars and screaming your lungs out as loudly as you can. Properly speaking (like all mystical states), it's something that can only be experienced, not described, but here we go anyway.

"Atomic Rotary Grinding God", at almost 16 minutes, opens with a backwards vocal warble that bounces along for a bit before a genuinely surprising and sharp feedback blast cuts through the music, and the massive interstellar spacecraft that is Acid Mothers Temple takes off into a hurricane of guitar, drums and bass. All the amplifiers are definitely set to eleven, and you can actually hear the drummer losing weight as he bashes away in a total frenzy. This is chaos to be sure, but a chaos that is groovy to listen to. Around seven minutes, things "calm" a bit, the vocal warble returns more or less. Two minutes later, the feedback hits again and a noisy restatement of the opening thunders along, overdriven wah-wah guitar solo inclusive. Close your eyes, and it's like you're in a jet plane, plummeting through black clouds, lit by sudden flashes of lightning.

"Loved and Confused", at 17 minutes, starts with the killer riff of the disc, a slow, monstrously stomping thing with continuously phased cymbals panning back and forth as white noise and the crooning vocalist in the background (imagine someone singing opera over grindcore). It really is amazing how much sound these guys get, without resorting to fattening up the mix by way of production tricks. Around 3 minutes, the monster lick gives way to outright maximal super-frenzy, high-necked scrambling guitar lines, warp-speed bass, the poor drummer (flailing with all four limbs as hard as possible), the phased, panned cymbals still swirling around and blerpy keyboard "washes" smearing across the whole sonic wall. At 6 minutes, everything comes to a torturously grinding, exquisitely wrung out pause, and you are just itching to hear that monster riff again. And indeed, you are rewarded, and it's a very satisfying thing indeed. Eventually, the riff just kind of melts away and another super-sonic wall of noises shreds and bombs and explodes for over 8 minutes to the end.

"Phantom of Galactic Magnum", at 19 minutes, starts with an underwater bubbly noise, as a low rumble of guitars and a crash cymbal creep up to fill the screen of your ears with the dreadnought enormity of some kind of sonic space cruiser. Treated vocals, and the now obligatory phased cymbals panning back and forth are suddenly blasted through the heart by a shrieking guitar freak out. Amazingly enough, the amplifiers are up to 12 this time. At around five minutes, one of the guitarists starts alternately nailing five power chords and soloing, "subtly" (if that's the right word) introducing the riff that is officially introduced around 7'30" (or at 15'00", depending on how you want to parse it). Proof, if it was needed, that this is not music without a brain, or random noise rock altogether. The guitar mayhem here, matched by keyboard craziness ... words fail me. Then it gets crazier.

In general, one could say this disc is simply three variations on a basic formula: a touch of introduction, a heavy riff just to trick you into thinking it's really a song, and then cutting to massive, band-wide improvisationally overwhelming spazzing out. A satisfying repeat of the riff later in the song reassures you that, indeed, this is still music and creates once again a sense of the wholeness of the song.

In the final analysis, this music is intensely cathartic and uplifting. It's certainly not for everyone, but if truly over-the-top hyper-amped music on the largest scale is something that might appeal to you, then you will not want to miss this disc, or this band.