Welcome To The Potsville Nebula!
I would advise drawing a deep breath before diving into Crobot. If you don't, you may well be left a stupefied mess by this blast of cosmological psychedelia. |
| Credit: nuclearblast.de |
Musically, they're controlled in their chaos - like King Crimson minus the idiosyncratic acid-driven, seemingly decade long instrumentals - swirling and swaying a miasma of rhythm, riffs and quirky distortion until you're induced into a psychedelic coma: Crobot would have fitted right in cerca 1966-69.
The genre is a tricky one to pin down though - heavy psychedelic space rock - at a punt. Imagine what would have happened if Jefferson Airplane, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath had given birth to a sub-genre and you'll get a vague idea of just how out there Crobot are!
Despite WTFC being a very spacey album, there are varying degrees of pothead craziness interwoven throughout the 12 tracks. The title track, for example, opens with a colossal smash of drums and riffage, and is only added to with guitarist Chris Bishop's unique use of a Vox Joe Sattriani Time Machine Delay pedal, creating some kind of inter-dimensional, oscillating warp speed shrill - an effect that pops up regularly in this edition of Crobot's discography.
Bringing the insanity of the album back down to earth a little is Easy Money - the only track on the album that harks back to the roots of the blues with a heavy, plodding rhythm and a harmonica solo.
If there's one example on here of a song starting as one thing and quickly changing to a total juxtaposition, it's Hold On For Dear Life. A perfectly serene guitar tone is projected for 30 seconds or so, before an enormous, monstrous, marauding Sabbath-esque barrage comes crashing through the ether like a locomotive pounding through a sleepy village. To give it higher praise still, it has very much the same balking impact as Tony Iommi's ominous opening strums on the band's eponymous track.
Much in the same vein as Hold On To Dear Life - except without the opening diversion - Plague Of The Mammoths delivers yet more Sabbath inspired doom. What's more, we're treated to an entire solo from Bishop with the Vox Joe Sattriani Time Machine Delay, producing a mesmeric, other worldly soundscape.
Once you've regained your breath from your 35 minute odyssey through the potsville nebula, you'll want to start all over again!
Rating - 4/5
