Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 04/08/2017
Label: Riot Season
“Ascent To Godhead” is a wild ride that
demonstrates Earthling Society are the real deal when it comes to modern
psychedelic rock.
“Ascent To Godhead” DD//LP track
listing:
1). Can You
Levitate?
2). Ascent
To Godhead Part 1 (Godhead/Going For Refuge/The Celestial Mind)
3). Electric
Bou Saada
4). Ascent
To Godhead Part 2
The Review:
Riot Season Records continue to unearth the
gems in the oversaturated world of psychedelic rock with Earthling Society’s new LP “Ascent To Godhead”. The latest offering
from the Fleetwood trio is a truly epic voyage that begins with sun-drenched
optimism and slowly descends into a dark well of noise.
The jangly
garage rock of “Can You Levitate?” opens
proceedings in hopeful fashion. This is as close as the band get to a proper
pop song but it is coated in enough scuzzy fuzz and unhinged wah to remain
reassuringly dirty. Once you have emphatically responded in the affirmative to Earthling
Society’s request to levitate, the journey to the outer limits truly
begins with “Ascent To Godhead (Part
1)”. A multi-stage mantra built around minimal repetitive guitar lines,
minimal percussion and droning sitars, the track begins in classic Spacemen 3
territory. As the track shifts between movements, the atmosphere becomes hazier
as the ascension turns darker.
While the
first half of “Ascent To Godhead”
achieves mind-expanding results with a relatively restrained sonic pallet, the
second half sees Earthling Society unleash distortion overload. “Electric Bou Saada” is a monstrous jam
built around huge riffs and searing solos that comes on like a more ragged Earthless
tussling with Acid
Mothers Temple. Just as the track reaches a furious peak of free
rock intensity the band take a left turn into a more subdued Can-style
groove. This maintains an air of menace even though the volume and dirt has
been stripped away. This leads into the hellish finale of “Ascent To Godhead (Part 2)” where the journey has reached its
destination to discover a nightmarish world in place of the expected utopia. An
unrelenting fuzz-heavy riff etches itself into your brain as saxophones screech
all around. The cacophony eventually subsides to a soothing keyboard based coda
that attempts to bring the listener back to earth as gently as possible.
“Ascent To Godhead” is a wild ride that
demonstrates Earthling
Society are the real deal when it comes to modern psychedelic rock.
“Ascent To Godhead” is available here
