Before I commence with the review for the new work by Canterbury’s finest five piece, there are several questions I need to ask. Do you like Doom? Do you prefer to listen to whole albums rather than disposable single track downloads? Do you like your music epic? Well, if you answered in the affirmative, this Zeppelinesque entitled second album from Famyne, ‘Famyne II: The Ground Below’, could well be what you are looking for.
‘Defeated’ starts big, and sets the tone for the entire album with massive guitars that boldly emerge from the speakers in a wall of relentless sonic goodness, ably matched by a pounding bass and unflagging drum beats, the entirety soaring up to meet the almost operatic vocals of Tom Vane; music to mope about to and stare at your shoes this is not. ‘Solid Earth’ is no less massive, albeit the slower, dare I even say it, simpler riffing lends it a more stripped back sound, if only by comparison to what came before as it is another track that will have hack reviewers like your humble scribe reaching for the thesaurus to find appropriate terms to encapsulate the monumental scale of the work. It is not only the album title that harkens back to the golden age of Messrs. Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham, as Famyne prove in ‘Gone’, the plucked notes and mysterious delivery seeming to echo across time all the way from Kashmir to Kent, the track building up like a burgeoning sand storm that subsides as the last note echoes away. This respectful acknowledgement of those rock titans that came before them continues in ‘A Submarine’, the tempo building from the contemplative and meandering into the grandiose Prog like zenith of interweaving vocals and instruments.
‘A Submarine’ flows into follow up ‘Babylon’, and whilst each and every song on this album can stand alone, each is better by being listened to as part of the whole. ‘Babylon’ adds a stomping groove to the mix before evolving into altogether more complex beast of a track, the unexpected sudden cut off leading to the bleak intro of ‘Once More’, a dark, near Gothic delivery matching the all black clothing the band present themselves in on stage. The album is then rounded off by the neck wrenching head bang demanding beats of ‘The Ai’, before the final track ‘For My Sins’ draws the proceedings to a heroic close as each element of the band seeks to exceed the other, the resultant sound rather than falling apart, instead managing to meld into one Herculean singularity.
I’ve been fortunate enough to catch Famyne live a few times over the years, including a couple of tent ramming sets at Bloodstock, and have been thoroughly impressed by their ability to not only recreate their recorded sound live, but even exceed it by virtue of the additional energy they somehow find in front of an audience. ‘Famyne II: The Ground Below’ is a more than worthy addition to their sonic arsenal, and I can only commend you to get to any of their shows if you can, and if you can’t, at least console yourself by purchasing the album.
(8.5/10 Spenny)
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