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The Spacelords — Spaceflowers
(Tonzonen TON071, 2020, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2020-09-18

Spaceflowers Cover art

As Douglas Adams noted in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one thing about space is that it’s big… really big. No matter how fast you go (barring tricks like wormholes), it takes a while to get anywhere interesting. So it makes sense that space rock is a style that tends towards long tracks, and just like traveling on Earth, making the journey itself interesting and not just a way to get to a destination is the key to making the process enjoyable. As on their previous album, Water Planet (2017), The Spacelords present three long tracks of instrumental grooving that bridge the gap between Hawkwind and Ozric Tentacles. After a brief floating intro, “Cosmic Trip” is a full LP-side worth of riffing with a powerful bass line, Mellotron-like strings, and multiple guitar parts, the most prominent of which wields a wah-wah pedal unashamedly. It’s a great example of the slow buildup, with a somewhat low-key first section followed by a new riff that gradually ramps up the energy through increasingly intense guitar soloing. When they finally break the riff and hit a new chord around the 22 minute mark, tension has climbed to quite a level, and they take it out in great style over the next couple of minutes. “Frau Kuhnkes Kosmos” starts out a fast clip with an almost punkish energy, with a riff built up from a single echoing note. Once again, they do a great job of building up the intensity, this time keeping it under 12 minutes. They finish off with the title track, another variation on the general theme, this time with organ filling in the background for the bass and guitar. Check out the video to see how it goes down. The Spacelords do a good job of mining rock riffs at length while keeping them interesting enough to not get dull, though I suppose some listeners might not be into these jams. But for fans of space rock, this is a sure bet.

Filed under: New releases, 2020 releases

Related artist(s): The Spacelords

More info
http://thespacelords1.bandcamp.com/album/spaceflowers

 

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