SONIC PRAYER

The first long player of Earthless is opened frankly with drums warming up the hypnotic web soon being veawed by repetitive bass guitar pulses. A chaotic guitar sound wall approachs, and the sound is treated at some points beyond tones of recognisible guitar sounds. After the needed room is gained with the entry blastout, a powerful stoner rock riff theme is introduced, then followed by a truly great acid rock guitar solo. In the second track a short mantra in oriental sounding chords starts to grow as downtuned heavy stoner riff progressions, later evolving again to fine acid guitar solos and closed by reprising the riff themes.

The guitarist Isaiah Mitchell is in my opinion very talented and imaginative as a solo player, the professionally performing rhythm section mostly keeps the set together. I think it is an achievement to lead a twenty minutes excluding jam track with solo instrument in an interesting manner. The overall sound of this group is also really pleasant to listen, an association of an expanded treatment of The Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Driving South" BBC Session track is brought to my mind, also live sound of Cream with less-adventurous rhythm section is another thought as comparison.

So if you like guitar driven heavy psychedelic rock music, where long jams are borne from simple rules and vivid imagination, this record will probably please you.

EARTHLESS are trio from California who play a heavy brand of Psychedelia. We get two side long tracks where they simply jam in a repetitive manner. There's not a whole lot of variation, but then again I love this style of music where they simply jam, especially when it's this heavy. FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND from Japan are no doubt big influences on this band. Heck even the album cover reminds me of their "Satori" album that that Japanese band released back in 1971. Oh and the title of the first track is a bit of a giveaway (haha).

"Flower Travellin' Man" opens with drums that recall the start of ZEP's "Immigrant Song" and then the distorted guitar comes in swirling. Riffs 1 1/2 minutes in.Tighten your seat belts 'cause here we go ! Just a light show here from the guitarist as the bass and drums lay the ground work. Nice bass before 4 minutes.The guitar is just ripping it up 11 minutes in. A shred-fest 13 1/2 minutes in. It just blows me away that this onslaught goes on for 20 minutes.

"Lost In The Cold Sun" opens with noisy, distorted guitar as the bass and drums join in. It becomes SABBATH-like 4 1/2 minutes in and later at 12 1/2 & 15 minutes in. Another fantastic jam with a big finish.

I'd love to see these guys live, it would be a smoke-fest in more ways than one.

With a song title like Flower Travellin' Man this band leaves no doubt where they got their inspiration from, right from the legendary Flower Travellin' Band that created similar heavy psych kraut/rock more then 30 years earlier.

Earthless is not tribute band but brings a modern variant of heavy psych, very similar to Monster Magnet's Tab ... 25 and the instrumental side of recent Motorpsycho albums. In comparison to those bands they keep things entirely instrumental, creating outstretched heavy jams that also bring Loop to mind. They create great grooves but miss a bit of the songwriting qualities, and at 20 minutes per jam, things can get a bit dreary if you're not in the mood.

The comparison to the great 70s examples isn't entirely favorable neither, the jams are certainly not as adventurous, experimental, blowing and free as those from Guru Guru or Ash Ra Tempel's rocking side. The band sticks to a simple rocking groove and doesn't let go of that for most of the time.

This is a fun listen, but only recommended if you already exhausted the discography of the bands mentioned above.