Litmus - s/t
(self-released 2001, cassette)
Litmus - s/t
(self-released 2001, cassette)
From Aural Innovations #19 (April 2002)
Now here's something I hear surprisingly little of anymore. Genuine 100% unfiltered non-pasteurized SPACE ROCK! Litmus is a London based trio that are guaranteed to make Hawk fans stand up and cheer. The band consists of Simon on guitars, audio generator, and vocals, Martin on bass, mandolin, soprano sax, synth, audio generator, and vocals, and Ben on drums, percussion, samples, and audio generator. These guys play it hard heavy and mucho cosmic. The cassette lists four tracks which appear on side A. "Earthbound is a pounding metallic space rocker with classic pulsating space synths and keyboards that give the music a heavy spacey prog feel. But this is overwhelmingly space metallic and there's a brief fiery guitar solo and plenty of room for head banging. A kick ass tune! "Electric Sun" begins as an acoustic song but soon launches into a space rockin' ass kicker to rival "Earthbound". "Evil" has a bit of a Stoner space feel but with all three members handling audio generators you know those suckers are swirling constantly. And "Twinstar" is my favorite track standing up to the heaviest of Hawkwind rockers, complete with Nik styled sax. Finally, just for giggles I turned the cassette to side B even though the cassette label doesn't list anything and... surprise! We have Litmus covers of "Assault & Battery" and "The Golden Void". Killer versions too.
Yeah I know... some people will call this too derivative, but these guys do it great and I'm going to say this is essential MUST listening for Hawkwind fans. I'll be looking forward to a full length CD release from Litmus.
For more information you can visit the Litmus web site at: http://www.litmusmusic.co.uk/.
Contact via snail mail c/o Litmus Music: PO Box 32133; London; N4 1FY; UK.
Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz