GENTLE PATH HIGHWAY

If it wasn't for their 90's albums, I guess The Spacious Mind could be lumped in with the rest of today's post rock bands. That means if you are bored with post rock, stay away from this. Otherwise, give this album your full attention as the psychedelic noise, and dynamic changes take you on an overall relaxing trip with a few moments of chaos scattered throughout.

The title track, while being the shortest, is also the best. However, the three other tracks definitely have their moments too; you just have to wait for them. If you like psychedelic, krautrock, or post rock, you should give this album a try, even though Cosmic Minds at Play and Mind of a Brother are more actively engaging and in my opinion, better. I would put it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars on the rating scale, but closer to 4.

Like many other major recordings of this band, the music on this album runs continuously from beginning to end without pauses. The long musical trip allows a receivable listener to play with one's personal associations upon quite abstract and trance-oriented tunes. Vibraphone resembling sounds open carefully the album with "Rider of The Woodlands", percussions, bass, vocals and subtle guitars joining this hypnotic mantra later. I admit I felt this ride slightly boring, during the sixteen minutes of time there didn't appear to happen anything interesting with the melodic theme or progression of intensity. Minimalisms and long durations of monotonic sonic presentations are not troubling for me, but the musical elements should find a way for pleasant level in some way. The title song "Gentle Path Highway" starts with a more aggressive rock punch, cosmic synth humming creating a psychedelic sound carpet, which is exploited more in the later ambient part of the song. I think this group succeeds really well in conjuration of such quiet and calm sound worlds. "Honja" starts with violin sounds seeking direction slowly, which is found from two-key blues progression, having again those vibraphone sounds, tribal-like slow drumming and chanting voices. Later the quietness changes to a powerful loud acid rock pattern running on the blues scale. This song sounds little Acid Mothers Temple's "La Novia" epic, though that is yet better in my opinion (being longer and having more interesting musical elements). The final track "Civilization Blues" hovers quietly in formless avant-garde cosmos occupied by soft psychedelic sounds, and this is actually the most pleasing track here for me. This record was a small disappointment from a band which I like quite much, but it's not really a bad record either. I prefer many of their earlier albums though much more.