HAIDA DEITIES

I'll be honest I was scratching my head wondering why I would pick up a couple of albums by a band called HOLY RIVER FAMILY BAND. They surely knew they weren't going to be selling any records with a name like that, then the title of this 1996 album is "Haida Dieties" which again just makes me want to fire this out the window but... after doing some research I found my answer, this is the project of the keyboardist for THE SPACIOUS MIND a band I really dig.

They are a trio and they released three studio album from 1996 to 2002. Maybe Raga is a good reference with these ethnic instruments like oud, zurner, saz, jew's harp, tablas and hurdy gurdy. And obviously from the title of the album and the band's name this has a pretend spiritual base. Now the opener and closer are the two tracks that really reference their beliefs and are the worst two pieces and include over 40 minutes of music, so right there this isn't getting 4 stars.

Having said that I really enjoyed that second song "Eztetl" at 12 1/2 minutes. It just has more of a "rock" vibe than the opener and closer and so is much more closer to what I'm into. More uptempo, more guitar and I like the synths here. The violin actually gets nasty on this one late and the drumming is more intense. "Green Corn Dance" is a distant second as far as favourite songs go and by far the shortest at under 4 minutes. Still I like those punchy drums, spacey synths and upfront bass early on. This increases in power too. Good song!

I almost feel like I'm being too hard on this one but honestly that opener and closer are just so long, repetitive and mellow, just not my scene. But it might be yours. Closer to 3.5 stars.