The whole psych sound is getting harder to kill than punk. It's one thing to play as incompetent and fast as possible with the intent of pissing off your audience but it's another to warp and distort a sound and timings to the point of forcing them to reexamine what time they got there. Be warned, this is some of the most serious, menacing psych out there. Energy Gown has the Wooden Shjips in their cannon sights.
A-Side's "Tow the Line" has a warped, high treble reverb attached to this blown out guitar, combined with a hint of metal. It's a sludgy tempo with a lead Ozzy echo metal delivery over clear smooth backup lady vocal magic in the background. A tough whine of heavy organ with tambouirne shakes hitting these chord changes like the Zoltars '60s feel and 13th Floor Elevators slowed down with an evil slant. No see saw, just a straight dead arm strum over and over into infinity. The mics turned up to their highest level of input. The next track, "Diamond Bun" has the reverb and surf sound coming together like Psychedelic Horseshit's same kind of tempered psych more menacing because of the vocal style here and the deliberate way they push all of the instrumentation right into the hiss played at that slow 33 speed. Great classic rock solo taking the low end throbbing distortion sounds from guys like The Enthusiasts. Their sludgy psych sound dives right to the depths with one of those huge diving bells and sinks low. The vocals and guitar drowning under static hiss, with a wah lurking in this warbled distortion ending in a truly massive solo.
B-Side's inner label starts altering minds before the track, "Echo Tower" even starts. It's one of those off center spirals that says a lot about the tones here. It's not an easy melodic sound...this is digging deep into the primal sounds of psych's repetition and repeated patterns, the things that seem to go on long after a lesser band would have swapped tempos. They're letting things play out and give them the space to set on this path and glide with synth sounds that sustain into the sun over sync'd up toms and tambourines. Meaty vocals take their time to even finish a single word and then work out harmony between the guy girl vocal while guitars are off experimenting with new melody structures. Slowly fading this one out - psych. A real fake out tempo headed into a crawl that never really happens. Things get into a heady space, swirling out, the echo delayed twisted up and maxing out the side of a single, somehow cramming their pathways into this six or so minutes. If they got their hands on a full length, it wouldn't have any track breaks or song titles...they're ready to get epic. Once the energy gown comes out of the closet, there's no putting it back in like nothing ever happened.
Get this from the band direct.
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