Friday, March 8, 2013

Lark's Tongue on Bird Dialect records



Got this one from the guys in Lark's Tongue who got together a couple of years ago and list a near perfect starting point for what is their own unique blend of big psych. Inspired by Earth, Hawkwind and Slowdive among others...they're speaking my language...it all starts with Hawkwind and the 13th Floor Elevators then you throw in the deep punishment from Earth...(Damn I have to go listen to that tonight, the perfect rumbling, distortion blanket soundtrack after a long week) and Slowdive...a pretty not obvious shoegaze reference...and you can guess that wherever they're going, it's going to be a dense, hazy ride of layered guitar.

That's what you get on A-Side's "The Rope" with it's warm organ '70s opening, booming percussion and piles of guitars with that hissy fuzz of the Ride. Another slightly digging shoegaze sound. Slight echo prog vocals with a real abstract lyric. Something descended from serious long hair metal with it's blend of guitar and synth. Subtle melodies merging together while for the chorus the rest of the band comes in to get that classic rock feel. An ominous, cymbal in the center with clangy fast hits, epic synth rock, hitting on that classic rock sound and a '90s shoegaze, bullseye, exactly what they're going for. There are moments of distanced Soccer Mom/Sonic Youth guitar pyrotechnics, blasted back a good 30 years to that deadly serious beginning of metal sound. The theatrics of it all driving a bit of the scene, the Spinal Tap epitome of stage show... you can hear that massive undertaking here. They care about the vocal harmony as much as those guitar layers, big and thunderous. Wind blowing on the edge of a cliff, silouetted against lighting in the sky. The full moon maybe. That's Lark's Tongue epic insane length they go to rock.
B-Side's "Tuscon Arizona" gets right into an emotive, breathy vocal about the city in Arizona, and they're definitely capturing that feeling of the massive space, creating that landscape with drawn out spacey chords. It's a sincere, mammoth undertaking, the synth has to line up and the rock creeps along at a stoner pace. Blended into an overdriven solid line wave of sound, this isn't the track from the middle of the movie, it's the credits. These guys can't help themselves and the vocal continues to match the huge sound of this record, feedbacking into a distortion wall drop. Take the psych sound prog rock sound with these narrative gothic storylines and mash it together with the serious fuzz of shoegaze. The beating grows louder into toms the guitar completely freaking out in ever climbing loops only to come into a drawn out, fading stop.

Pick this up from Bird Dialect Records.

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