Review: Earthling Society - Zen Bastard

So, this is what happens when one of your favourite bands releases an album on one of your favourite labels! Earthling Society have long been a band whose every new release I await eagerly and, upon arrival, enjoy unreservedly, and Drone Rock Records, well, their releases speak for themselves: Kill West, the wonderful 'Magnetic North' compilation, TBWNIAS, Psychic Lemon & The Space Spectrum....a label with a finger firmly on the pulse of the psychedelic zeitgeist. The release of 'Zen Bastard' however sees both band and label surpass themselves

Title track 'Zen Bastard' begins as an artful mix of krautrock repetition with some prog stylings..it's all very nice but at the 2m 30 mark the track really comes alive. A heavy, fuzzy riff accompanied by some spacey effects and synth lines and a throbbing bass line make for a spacerock track that Hawkwind could only dream of producing...it's that good. Stir in some harmonised, treated vocals and some sitar-like guitar to add a distinct psychedelic air to proceedings and you have a track that is nothing short of genius!! (The download of the album also comes with the full 15 minute, unexpurgated version...which is even better!) 'OutsideOfInTime' sees the band revisiting the heady seventies. There is more than a touch of early Floyd, especially with the vocals, and some Krautrock-like progressive rock. Again the sitar sounding guitar imbues a psych air to things. It's tracks like this that remind you that Earthling Society are a group of consummate musicians...the standard of musicianship is exemplary. The track grows and evolves throughout its 12 minutes...at times sounding like an acid rock band in full jam mode and at times like a prog rock opus but all seamlessly put together to produce a simply wonderful track. 'The Kozmik Suite' is the longest track at 19 minutes. The opening minutes are pure cosmic ambience...lilting guitar and synths produce an otherworldly atmosphere of tranquility and space. After 3 or so minutes of aural bliss a pulsing bass line heralds something special. Everything opens up into a driving spacerock leviathan. Again, it sees the band channeling both Floyd and Hawkwind and results in a track that is organically dense....that oft talked about 'wall of noise' is most definitely present, there are no gaps that aren't filled with swirling guitar or lush swathes of sound. Just when you think you've got a handle on the track it morphs into something new...the wall is breached and things breakdown into a more sedate passage of just guitar, drums and bass (is it me or at times does the guitar sound like a long forgotten Children's TV classic....buggered if I can remember which one) and the space allows Fred Laird to really show us what he can do with a guitar...soaring into the stratosphere and back, taking the listener on a whistlestop tour of the cosmos...simply sublime. After all that, some oscillating drones see out the remaining the minute or so...a chance to catch one's breath.

Although I've bandied around such names as Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, these are purely just points of reference...what Earthling Society have produced,indeed what they always produce, is unique..taken as a whole, their material sounds like nothing ever done before...it's just 'Earthling Society'! That's one of the reasons I love 'em...they are one-of-a-kind. As I mentioned in the intro, with 'Zen Bastard' they have surpassed even their own high standards..it is a simply wonderful album that takes spacerock, prog and psych and melds them all into something special...like alchemy, they have the recipe for gold and long may they use it. As for Drone Rock Records, they continue to go from strength to strength and this may well be their best release yet, and bearing in mind the absolute gems they have given us so far, that's saying an awful lot! This early on it may be a bit much to already pronounce this an album of the year, but 2017 will have to surpass the bumper year that was 2016 for this not to make the top 10...if I had a reputation, I'd stake it upon this. Bloody genius!