Wednesday, February 27, 2008

IT CAME FROM THE MAILBAG

Got two excellent psychedelic hard rock albums in today's mail from the World In Sound label (Forced Exposure sez the're based out of Germany, but these arrived from Brooklyn, so who knows).

The first one, the s/t debut by Lima, Peru's El Cuy, is a blazin' power trio disc with plenty of idling-dragster Rickenbacker bass, thunderous drums and guitar, guitar, guitar. The vocals are rudimentary/primitive, but in a crude-like-it-should-be way rather than a please-hire-a-vocalist-I'm-begging-here way.

The other one, though, is more interesting: It's Discovery Of Obskuria by Obskuria, a band featuring, according to Forced Exposure, legendary guitar player Tom Brehm of the '60s U.S. group Dragonwyck (never heard of 'em but whatever), super-talented German keyboardist Winnie Rimbach-Sator of Karmic Society and Treacle People - two more groups I've never heard of - and La Ira De Dios from Peru. So okay. What I know is that this album features a lot of kick-ass organ alongside the heavy riffing and huge bass throb, and nowhere does that organ come into play more strongly and more perfectly than on their eight-minute, dooooooommmm-like cover of Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls." They turn the song into an Iron Butterfly-esque plod until your skull's ready to implode from the sheer awesomeness of it. They also cover the Misfits' "Die, Die My Darling" with dueling male and female vocals, making it sound like something in between the Jefferson Airplane and X's "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss." Both of these are well worth your time.

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