Review: Blown Out - New Cruiser

What's to be said about Blown Out that many, myself included, haven't said already? The fact that they are leviathans of heady, noisy psych is now common knowledge among people with exceptional music taste (that means you, dear reader). They are a band whose output is as prodigious as it is consistently excellent. The (un)holy triumvirate of Mike Vest (Guitar), John-Michael Hedley (Bass) & Matt Baty (Drums) have released some 3 albums of new material in the space of just over a year ('Planetary Engineering', 'Jest Black Hallucinations' & the digital only 'Celestial Sphere') plus the brain scrambling 'Live Transmissions III' - by anyone's standards that is a hell of a work rate, which is nothing but good news to us mere mortals who crave all the face-melting, earth-moving psych we can wrap our ears around. So, to the new album, New Cruiser', out later this summer on Riot Season, the home to all things noisy.

The album comprises of just the 2 tracks; 'New Cruiser' and 'Phase II', both of which exceed the quarter of an hour mark. 'New Cruiser' dives straight in with some deep, rolling bass, crashing drums and the trademark guitar from Vest. The track rolls and pitches along its way, based, as ever, on repetition (the bass of Hedley becomes positively hypnotic) while the guitar weaves heavy, reverb-drenched patterns in the sky. Blown Out have become masters of this - music that is heavy enough to affect the gravitational pull of nearby planets whilst still having the ability to mesmerise....the music that has you nodding whilst staring into the distance. This is what 'psychedelic' music is all about....not flowers and sugarcubes and paeans to long lost pastoral idylls, but music that can transport you. In Blown Out's case, that means a one way ticket to the far reaches of known space...with a huge shit-eating grin on yer face. If 'Phase II' may sound a tad familiar to some, that's because it is a reworked, longer version of the same on 'Celestial Sphere' (on a purely personal note, I'm glad that some of that album will make it on to vinyl). It continues pretty much where 'New Cruiser' left off...blistering, fuzzy wah-wah, jackhammer drums and undulating bass all coming together to create an Heironymous Bosch like vision of hell....Vest's guitar positively wails at times like some poor tormented denizen of the underworld. Like 'New Cruiser' it is the repetition that holds the power...for all of the freewheeling, freakout guitar, it has a structure and a form to which the rhythm section sticks rigidly. This is the less-than-secret ingredient in the Blown Out recipe..the tightness of form that allows a freedom of expression....sounds oxymoronic I know but without the drums/bass creating a framework the guitar of Vest would sound chaotic and functionless, but instead it sounds free but purposeful. In all, 'New Cruiser' is another unqualified success...guaranteed to scramble the brains and scare the neighbours...what's not to love. Stunning!

'New Cruiser' will be released on Riot Season at the end of August, giving you time to save your pennies psychonauts, 'cos this is going to be one those indispensable albums.