New Dundee band rising from the ashes of an old one, but it's far too good to start the old comparison game - instead, let's treat this truly as a new beginning.
Previously reviewed as it was intended, the album has now undergone certain additions, remixes and alterations, so that this is now the final version - and even more stunning than before!
"New World Theft" opens the album on a delicate note with light middle eastern sounding marimba-like percussion and flute providing a siren call over subtle rivers of guitar feedback, providing a prayer call to the masses for what's to come. Then on a hushed sea of guitar fx, the driving drumming that is the trademark Wildhouse foundation, comes into action on "Miro" as chiming guitars and restrained feedback take the background, a lone and lonely vocal intoning the song with a sense of impending darkness. Then all of a sudden thw whole thing erupts as this squall of feedback sizzles away in the background while the drums hurl it all forward as two duelling electric guitars take off to the skies before the whole thing drops back on a wave of almost Hawkwind-like space-fx before the rining guitar focus emerges awhile the drums continue to drive as the searing feedback restraint sees the song out. With a river of distant amorphous guitar feedback once more introducing "Preflyte", the band see it in on a cascading guitar-as-bass figure before the drums provide the metronomic beats amid cymbal splashes and drummer Sheila now intones the lyrics in robotic fashion as a marked lack of any emotion distinguishes it as a track that any number of early seventies Krutrock bands would have been proud to call their own, confirmed first by the brief lead guitar line that emerges and then by the cataclysmic tornado that the band becomes as this monster mass of swirling, surging, riffing and scything guitars and feedback provide a furnace-like heat as Sheila's drumming and vocals deliver an unswerving foundation of rhythm and monotony that is truly awesome. "Vanilla Jr" starts with chiming guitar lines and hushed male vocal, this time harmonies providing a real sense of emotion as you think you're in for a slice of normality, only akin to early Velvet Underground normality than anything, the track so far highly engaging in a kind of "Sunday Morning" esque Velvets and Nico vein. Then, almost as soon as it began, it ends, and just perfect for it too. "Three Point Echo" opens with high register guitars and more searing heat feedback as the almost unbearable tension eventually breaks out into this "Interstellar Overdrive"-styled rhythm only faster, as the band create a monster of a track with spiralling guitars and clattering drums wrapped in a storm of feeedback and furnace-fire guitar squall all climb, then drop back to earth as shards of guitars sheer off and drop down to dramatic effect. More of their wondrous chiming guitar leads open "Hope Is How You Control Me", this time the vocals as harmonies providing a smoothly good-feeling vibe over the ringing guitars before a brief squall of feedback makes you think it's going to catch fire, but it doesn't. Instead the song continues its magical path, once again building to a point where you think it's going to fire up - only this time it does - and, boy, does it power up. In a blitz of sound, the drums pound away as this massive expanse of searing guitar heat lights up the skies and the whole thing just powwers ahead in a way that would make any space-rock and Krautrock bands and fans, salivate with delight. Reaching its height, it then reverts to the song for just a few seconds, and then its gone.
"Aguilar - the end of bookburn" starts with driving rhythms and guitar attack as a yodelling vocal delivers a flavour of the Orb's "Perpetual Dawn" before the harmony vocals provide the icing on the cake, albeit very briefly, only for the track to take off like a Saturn V rocket on a blaze of scorching Neil Young-esque guitar heat, Can-like drums and cymbals, plus blistering layers of guitar chords, feedback, fx and lord knows what else, eventually the massive sound dropping back as the drums head into classic seventies Neu territory and the track becoems this guitars-driven, rampaging slice of Krautrock-esque genius that is simply breathtaking, eventually ending on a hushed note as song returns.
Unfortunately, there the review has to end as my CDR advance copy won't play the last three tracks, so check out the previous review for a flavour of those - "Outro", "Imperfect Haiku" and "Tom Barman".
But, suffice to say, this is absolutely brilliant. OK, so it's probably the least but one most uncommercial act in Dundee, but in a field all its own, this band are absolute genius. If only they could get this into a more widely known space-rock, Krautrock and Velvet Undergorund fans' domain, this could be absolutely huge. For now, if what I've described remotely interests you, seek out a copy from the band's website at your earliest opportunity.