Review: The Cosmic Dead - Psych Is Dead

I'm a bit late out of the starting blocks with this one...there is a reason for that, namely It took me a bit of time to get to grips with it. Not the music itself, but the fact that I was listening to The Cosmic Dead..I had to keep checking that I was playing the right album. Don't get me wrong...I love The Cosmic Dead - 'Easterfaust' is one of my fave albums (and weirdly the only one I don't have on vinyl....go figure!) and they are easily one of the most electrifying bands I've seen live. The problem I had was equating this music with that band...a band known for their sonic blast of space/kraut/psych - the type that fries brains and scrambles innards - have produced an album that asks questions of the listener (rather than the usual 'are my ears bleeding?') and demonstrates a refinement and discernment. As for the title 'Psych Is Dead'....that's a whole post in itself; better minds than my own have debated and discussed that..we all have our own view on what 'psych' is and thus our own views on whether it is dead. 'Psych Is Dead' has been released on the Riot Season label and what a year they are having!

The album is made up of just the three tracks, the first of which, 'Nuraghe' (an ancient megalithic structure found on Sardinia where the album was recorded) is a mammoth 21 minutes in length and pretty much shows what the band have always been about - a huge space rock epic built on repetition and fuzzy guitars. The flashes of electronica add to the spaciness and there are some ace drones underscoring eveything...it is big, it is loud, it is The Cosmic Dead doing what they do best. It is what happens after the apocalyptic climax of 'Nuraghe' that makes this album so damn essential. The title track 'Psych is Dead' begins with what can loosely be called hauntology...it has the same vibes and retro feel as many of the bands on the Ghost Box label...seventies tinged synths, laden in echo, are combined with bubbling drones and vague, distorted vocals. There are synths that sound like a nuclear warning tocsin that heralds the moment when it all expands and grows to become a dubby exercise in the layering of sound...storey upon storey of different elements are built...the tremulous electronica, some jazzy drumming, fuzzy guitars and the rich swathes of synths...and the result is stunning; a far more experimental version of The Cosmic Dead and I gotta say, I love it! But the best is still yet to come...the final track '#FW' is spectacularly good. Opening once more with the spectral synths and warbling drones under which the cymbals shimmer, the track builds and builds with the percussion becoming more assertive and the synth melodies creating an atmosphere of bucolic beauty that disguises a tautly held suspense...and then it happens. At about the five minute mark it explodes into something completely different - the atmosphere changes into something claustrophobic and it becomes a cacophony of guitar, drums and electronica that is enthralling and intoxicating. The repetition and the heavy, heavy motorik form a solid structure around which the guitars and the synths can create the exhilarating maelstrom of noise and mayhem...brilliant!

'Psych Is Dead' is The Cosmic Dead's most important release to date...it doesn't just rely on their (admittedly fantastic) take on heavy space rock but instead shows a new willingness to mess with form and structure, to warp their modus operandi into something completely different. The more experimental passages are just as exciting as the blitzkreig shredding but in a different way. As I said at the beginning, it took me a while to equate music and band but once this was done I could appreciate the album for what it is...a truly great and important album in The Cosmic Dead's discography and possibly their best. Is Psych Dead?..is it fuck as like ....but it has just been re-imagined! 'Psych Is Dead' can be purchased via the Riot Season Bandcamp page here or webstore here on CD or vinyl.