 |
| Black Time photo by Dale Merrill |
If the latter was the case they got handed a line of bullshit. Instead of being given the opportunity to run a galaxy they were put in clerical jobs at Grand Omega Minus, assigning those that pass through to places to cause discord, dissension and division. They decide to document the daily experiences and speculate what is going on inside the minds of the people they're dealing with. Eventually, toiling in such an environment, causes their nerves to scramble and become just like those they're sending off to encourage havoc.
Originally recorded in 2009 but left to fester and ferment in some dark room with just a strobe light and a couple dog eared copies of Psychotronic magazine to keep it company, what all that happened can now be told.
Right from the get go with the record's title track thing bursts into flames like a rattled spaceship co-manned by Gary Burger and Kevin Shields re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Walls of searing feedback fill the air with toxic chemical laden orange hues of color and smell. Echo drenched vocals bray above while below guitars clang and clamor like church bells hitting the ground from crumbling steeples. Later down in the album "Aeriel Dub" reassembles that rubble into a slower and more abstract structure.
Devoted to caustic fuzz that can tear asunder ear drums and stereo speakers in moments is a calling card for a lot of bands. While some that ply such sound chose to wade through a lunkhead gutter while wearing a t-shirt that says slumming it, Black Time's acid tongued and well read without coming off too hoity-toity about it take aims to sizzle the brain first and THEN oscillates its way down to the hips. A song like primordial beat heavy "More Kicks That Pricks" and "The Winged Serpent" or the sea-sick sing-song swaying of shift work drones that goes on with "Industrial Anxiety" can make a backbone slip but also possesses petulant qualities encourages someone to find out what really happens when they take a gasoline soaked baseball bat to a wasps nest.
While raucous clamor is abounds, the splatter does take on different settings than just painting the garage wall red with blood. "Tarzan Vs IBM" (the original working title of Godard's Alphaville) is titled apropos in a simple person getting ground to bits by artificial intelligence blips and bloops. Things can also take an acoustic turn too with the soaring free and away from a dirty swamp and, dare I say it, rejoiceful feeling of "Flakes" and channel some alternate universe where bands like Mordecai and Honey Radar rub shoulders with pop stars on "Cave Paintings."
Since this is to be said the last record that will bear the Black Time the band closes it out with "Tolling Of The Bells" which is their final answer of what would it sound like if they REALLY wanted to do an unabashed mash up of the Fall and Can.
https://forbjudnaljud.bandcamp.com/album/black-time-aerial-gobs-of-love-ljud1201
Comments