Review: Low Orbit - Low Orbit

I love Pink Tank Records....all their releases are consistently top level and all are hard, heavy and fuzzy. If your tastes run to the heavier end of the psych scale then it's the label for you. Their latest is a vinyl release for the eponymous album from Low Orbit. Initially released on CD and download in 2014, the album has been given the full Pink Tank treatment...lush cover,180g vinyl and ltd numbers in glorious 'Cosmic Orange' vinyl. If you've ever wondered what Black Sabbath would sound like if they were influenced by sci-fi rather than horror....then wonder no more.

The band (Angelo Catenaro on vocals/lead guitar, Joe Grgic on bass/space trips, and Emilio Mammone on drums) were formed in 2013 after individually many years on the Canadian rock scene, and that experience shows in the righteously heavy psych on show. The album, however, starts off with 'Space Capsule', a collection of cosmic sound effects that place the album exactly where it is....above the stratosphere. 'UForb' sees the heaviness unleashed; a simple bassline and more spacey effects signal the arrival of riffs of Sabbath proportions and it soon becomes a psychedelic stoner freakout, with waves of heaviness that leave the speakers quaking win fear. 'Witchking' is all fuzzy bass and blistering heavy psych guitar and has some pretty awesome solos. It has the heaviness of doom but with more fire and tempo. 'International Bass Station' carries on the sonic onslaught, carried by a sonorous bass line and has an undercurrent of space rock, as befits it's title I suppose. 'Lost' is a pretty straightforward stoner anthem....powerful, fuzzy and driven perpetually onward by the guitar, drum and bass set-up. These guys know how to handle their instruments...one of the aspects of stoner rock I don't like is that so many stoner bands cannot play particularly well - they just buy a few pedals, play loud and think they're rock gods....with Low Orbit it's evident that they are musicians with nous, experience and know-how. 'Starships and Monoliths' sums up in one title the imagery that Low Orbit play with...a mix of high-tech space with folklore and myth. As a track it is a face-burner...the guitar soars and flies over another pummeling bassline and rock solid drums. The comparisons to Sabbath may be cheap and obvious but the band do have similar qualities to the Brummie legends...the riffs mainly! 'Treehowl' sees the band initially take another route..the guitar chimes rather than howl and the pace is more sedate...but it doesn't take long for normal service to be resumed. 'The Sloth' closes the (vinyl) album with thick, fuzzy bass and shimmering cymbal and is the most doom-y of all the tracks...stentorian and dense. As the track progresses there appear waves of feedback and distortion (always a good thing!) and the tempo speeds up bit by bit and starts to fade only to re-appear again, playing out to the end.

I gotta say.. I really like this album, it has the quality, charm and fuzziness of classic seventies heavy psych, the monster riffs of Sabbath and the patina of contemporary space rock. It is heavy and fuzzy enough to keep psych heads happy and nodding for a good long while. Pink Tank are on to another winner! The vinyl is up for pre-order now at Pink Tank with a release date the beginning of April.