The Band Whose Name Is A Symbol - Droneverdose

Cardinal Fuzz / Birdman Sound (CF092)

I first heard about this Canadian psych rock band in 2015 when I got their Masters of the Molehill album for a review. They have been making their instrumental impro/kraut/punk/spacerock oriented noise since 2008, though. Some of their releases are more or less just wild, lo-fi rehearsal space jams, but some, like this new one, are proper studio albums. I think the majority of the music is still based on improvisation, but you can tell that they have made some arrangements and dubbing for the final tracks. I got to say I prefer this little bit more sophisticated approach, and it's good to hear the band's music in high quality studio sound. It still has the same energy and vibe, I think.

The 42-minute album has five tracks, some of them short, some of them long. The groovy, mid-tempo "Earworm" starts off the party and I'm immediately in love. It's heavy and wild enough, but still stays together and starts to rock out faster towards the end. "Snoreland" is the shortest number at just under three minutes, and it's a pretty heavy, punky blast. "Gaussian Blur & Beach Debris" ends the A side of the album and has a fun, groovy beat at the beginning. Things get rather spacey, hypnotic and experimental on the journey and after ten minutes you start to feel pretty disoriented and hazy not knowing what hit you... Wow! We also get some chanting styled vocals at the beginning of "118" and the peaceful droney stuff brings to mind AMT a bit. Before the two-minute marker an energetic bass line ends the floating and off we go. Some cool jamming follows, and later on the track cools down again with some more chanting and drone. Very nice! The last piece "Tsunami Of Bullshit" is the longest at 15:30. The start is very ambient but rocking starts after three minutes. There's a lot of great stuff in this one when the band gets into their space rock mode. We'll also get experimental freak-outs, so don't worry... Excellent! This is a must-have album for all those into modern free-form heavy psych/kraut/space rock with a raw, punky edge. There will only be 300 copies of the LP so be fast when the preorder starts very soon!

thebandwhosenameisasymbol.bandcamp.com