Cover FRONT
Multi-instrumentalists Peter Lawson and Wolfgang Ostermann are back with a follow up to their exciting previous album from 2024 “Pandora’s Paradox”, a tasty packaging I enjoyed and reviewed accordingly. The duo are back with highly attractive cover art and an altered sound that plunges the listener into alternate impressions, forging new horizons in the process, while generously paying tribute to their influences.
The title track wastes little time in implementing this new resonance, resting somewhere between swerving insurrection and melodic surrender, Lawson’s lavish six and weaving four string implements are used to full sonic effect as Osterman punches accordingly. The hard psychedelia comes out in the rhythmic devastation, whilst the beauty lies within the sly grooves, an opening instrumental that optimizes the movements that will follow. The vectored course is clearly upheld on the more experimental “The Eternal Amicus Dance” with its preponderance of crisscrossing slashes of frazzled guitar swoops, and sudden dives into more exotic variations that exude aromas of once distant cultures.
Completely unexpected, “The Black Daisy” ( I would love to see that one day) forces one to scratch the cranium, as it flings the listener into an alternate clime, where the effusive guitars find themselves at times churning, then singing brightly, very near to the classic Phil Manzanera solo mood pieces. The bass and drum work are finely tuned like a racing car, taking smoking loops and burning rubber. When the Lawson vocals finally enter, the track evolves into an altogether different vibe, an intriguing and well executed dare that works perfectly. The constant remains the clever fretboard work, forever coveting new touches and caresses. A bold, audacious and progressive undertaking for any gardener in the making.
Bass-fueled and guitar led, “Fools and Sensibilities” wanders into a vortex of twangy melancholia, laden with voice effects, dripping synths barking, and an overall mood of controlled madness, best exemplified by an obstinately oblique guitar flurry. I thought for more than a second, I was revisiting Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy). Clanging trickery and emotional responses are guaranteed to please.
Like a well lubricated park slide, “Frozen Echo” meanders until it self corrects into a shimmering glide, the brazen guitars challenging on all channels, the robust bass provides the push in the back needed to get to the bottom of the Helter-Skelter ride, Ostermann’s arms flailing in the wind. A fascinating delight.
With a doom-laden organ intro that reminds one again of early Roxy Music (think In Every Dream Home, A Bogus Man) , “The Girl Who Was Death” plunges into a pool of fractured mirrors, glassy shards ripping flesh, and a pervading sense of grisly schizophrenia. When the guitar hurricane picks up speed, the insidious screaming can be heard deep inside the brain, dissonant effects surely alluding to an imaginary horror movie, a musical tribute to Linda Blair that can exorcize all the ghosts.
Sustaining the nearly unbearable pressure, “Requiem for Five” is nothing less than sonic pain revisited, wrapped in a deluxe Bill Nelson rifferama and vocal that stamps the obligatory seal on this short but lethal album. Images of sombre reptiles, chimeras, fat ladies and red noise remain imprinted on the soul, long after the CD is ejected.
4 Ezekiel’s wheels