It’s been a while since these delicate, white collar smooth hands have had to type anything of note, notwithstanding the trials and tribulations (Excel spreadsheets) of my day job which is as boring, as it is repetitive. So, it’s review time. I have done the obligatory run around the block, stretched and popped my knuckles and rubbed my hands together as if to conjure a fire in the old age tradition of starting a fire by way of friction and push my hands towards the keyboard, diving like a peregrine falcon towards an unsuspecting mouse. Unbeknownst to said mouse, he only has moments left of his so far, hum drum but productive life left ahead of him. I am not entirely sure where this paragraph is going but I, for one, am 100% committed to following this segue to its logical and bloody conclusion. The sun casts a shadow over Brian’s eyes, crying out in terror (yes, the mouse is called Brian), duelling with a look of acceptance on his whiskered face, as the screaming death from above swoops. Brian looks up at his impending doom, wondering (as am I) how he got caught up in this Grand Guignol of epic, but more importantly, completely made-up situation. ‘Where the fuck is the review?’ Brian gasped, before being snatched up into the heavens to be fed to a hungry falcon’s family. Sorry Brian, here is the review and apologies for the delay and commiserations to Mrs. Brian and brood. And so, onto the review, which I dedicate to Brian, a mouse whose life was snuffed out in the blink of an overblown flight of fancy.
Swedish three piece, Spelljammer (excellent name although it does regress me to a younger, more innocent time of my life where Dungeons and Dragons, was infinitely more important than going down the park to drink ‘Lazer Cider’), have been dooming it up for several years now with a couple of full-length efforts and EPs in their back catalogue, which has seen them serve up a slow, desert flavoured doom cocktail that’s very much in the vein of say Sleep, Dopelord and their label mates and fellow Swedes Monolord. Having listened to their back catalogue (being totally unfamiliar with the band before chancing upon this album) they’re all about the super slow and slimy, fuzzed up distortion and propellant drums that glide on a bed of distorted vocals with suitable low fi production, that seeps into your frontal lobe like a discarded car engine, left to spill it’s oily guts on your living room carpet.
The non-more doom ladened album title (Abyssal Trip), promises big, deep cavernous and other wordly treats but being so ‘on the nose’ with your album title, does really set you up for a fall if it fails to live up to it’s grandiose promises. Well does it? Well yes it does…partially. There is nothing on this album that you have not necessarily heard on other albums lurking around in this genre. It’s got that Sabbath-lite low end, that threatens to brown note you on several occasions during this album’s duration replete with sludgy, grimy guitars and pounding drums. It also comes with snippets of sinister, big brother indecipherable proclamations, juxtaposed alongside the music, creating a wormhole to a dense and dark landscape, a dystopian world where hope is eternal but ultimately crushed under the jackboot of a fascistic regime. Spelljammer provide the soundtrack to that movie.
I enjoy a spot of stoner/doom, Sabbath/Cathedral inspired rock, I luxuriate in the denseness of it, the heavy for heavy’s sake nature of the music and the plodding, soporific lullaby enthused blanket it throws over me. But after a while, my inner Thrash loving self, yearns for a tempo change, to get my groove on, to create a swing, a dance, a move, anything to escape the trench of gelatinous rifferama. When Spelljammer lift their foot off the fuzz box, the more delicate interludes featured here are sporadic and rare but are beautifully crisp and represent a refreshing accoutrement, an antidote to the dense and calorific riff laden soup that has come before it. There is no doubt that Spelljammer are a force to reckoned with. Their songs are brutish, huge, dense blocks of doom-laden joy but when they crank the window a touch and give you a glimpse into the distance where the fog and mist have cleared, to reveal a glistening ocean of calm, this is the very kernel of the band. When they open the throttle, cast aside their inhibitions, and throw caution to the wind and allow the tempo to rise above a stumble (no more so than on album highlight ‘Lake’), this is where the real joy is to be found, on this thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly one paced, effort.
(7/10 Nick Griffiths)
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