Spaceking - In the Court of the Spaceking

(No Name) 679

I recently received a big package of CD's from a Russian non-profit label that has no name or logo and only releases their stuff with catalogue numbers. Apparently the label was founded in late 2011 by Anton Kitaev, Ivan Bredolog & Oleg Dynya in Moscow. A label without a name might not be the easiest to promote but I'm of course always happy to receive new, interesting music to check out. Another obstacle might be that they don't release bands withing just one genre but on the other hand that can be seen as a plus side as well.

Anyway, this 7-track, 41-minute CD was released already in 2013 but against my principles of only sticking to recent releases I will still give it a short review. Now, Spaceking of course is a cool band name, although maybe not the most original. Looking at their Bandcamp site I can see that this seems to be their third release after a couple of EP's. They have also released one more album, The Piper at the Gates of Stone, in 2016 (download only, I guess). This five-piece from Saint Petersburg plays a heavy and experimental mix of metal, prog, stoner and sludge and I do enjoy them. The album is mostly instrumental which works well, but a track called "Rosemary" also has angry sounding vocals and "Judgment" some spoken word samples. There are also some grunge vibes I think, and I dig the groovy riffs and the sort of unexpected aspect of the band. The last track "Stardust" is the longest at 8:02 and has more synth-oriented parts that remind me of Pink Floyd which is never a bad thing in my Astral Charts. I bet this band might win more fans all over the world if they just were given a chance. So check them out!

www.facebook.com/Spaceking666