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If you are a psychedelic aficionado then you are aware that Austin, Texas, six- piece The Black Angels are the band ‘du moment’.
Their 2006 critically acclaimed debut album ‘Passover’ has been playing on your stereo for many weeks and their name has passed your lips countless times by now.
Fast approaching their third birthday and having been praised by many of their peers, these angels are finally able to fly on their own, spreading their ebony wings over that particular music scene.
If you don’t know what The Black Angels are about....well...the clues are in the title of the songs really.
Touring Europe supporting The Black Keys or headlining their own shows, they’re made to feel welcome wherever they go and the venues are very often sold out.
Tonight is no exception and it’s all about The Black Angels and nothing but...
The room is packed. A mix of trepidation and anticipation has taken over the audience. Some spectators long standing fans and some giving in to their inquisitiveness, here to see if The Black Angels will live up to their reputation as being somewhat in a league of their own.
Proud, as they should be, of their Doors and Velvet Underground influences, singer Alex Maas, guitarist Christian Bland, bass/guitar players Nate Ryan and Kyle Hunt [also on percussion as required], Stephanie Bailey on drums and Jennifer Raines, organ and drone machine, open with ‘Empire’ and ‘Young Men Dead’ and as you’re standing still, entranced, staring at the stage you can feel the heavy groove and relentlessly pounding tribal beats take over your mind.
And there is more to come. ‘Bloodhounds On My Trail’, ‘Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven’, ‘Better Off Alone’, ‘Manipulation’...all lifted from ‘Passover’.
As the darkness intensifies with more tales of war and death, you blindly allow yourself to follow their path to a place that has never encountered sun or light.
Half way through the show you realise that the overused and at times meaningless term ‘wall of sound’ was appropriately penned for these guys and girls.
Yes it is dark and heavy, sometimes chilling and hopeless but often enough ‘spine tingling’ sexy taking you to the edge of somewhere you wouldn’t dare talk about.
Despite Jennifer’s intoxicating ‘drone machine’ shameless attempts to suck the soul out of your body, this is not senseless gloom.
Whilst not an overtly political group of people, The Black Angels have expressed what many of us are thinking, comparing today’s war in Iraq with the horrors of Vietnam thirty years ago. Rightfully lamenting the needless death of young men and the unjustifiable spilling of blood.
Regardless of the 60s, 70s sound and Alex Mass probably being Jim Morrison’s love child, the message is of today.
An even more touching antiwar sentiment when you are from Texas and have to tolerate a blood thirsty Texan president.
They end with ‘Snake In The Grass’ and the show is over.
You feel disorientated as the lights are switched on.
Eventually you will get your soul back and your mind will be your own again...just give it a few days.
Highly recommended.
And as the angels say: “Turn on, Tune in, Drone out”
Words: Florence ACHERYphotos from myspace
www.theblackangels.com
www.myspace.com/theblackangels |
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Photo by Courtney Chavanell
Photo by Mark Goldstein |
