Hills - Master Sleeps
(Transubstans Records 2011, TRANS075)
Hills - Master Sleeps
(Transubstans Records 2011, TRANS075)
From Aural Innovations #42 (May 2011)
Master Sleeps is the latest album from Goteborg, Sweden's "Hills". RISE AGAIN: Sounds very Hawkwindish, you can hear the progression from the first album, also Hawkwindy vocals. I don't think there was any vocals on the other album. But it sounds badass. They don't necessarily sound like Hawkwind tho, they have some of the same elements but sound like themselves. BRING ME SAND: Okay, a very different sorta beat and sound on this one. Arabic guitars... Hills probably sound as cool and fresh as a spacerock band can in 2011 but I would argue that the next logical, artistic step from the last 43 years of spacerock would be to have it with all the spacerock elements but also with something new and original. Like the driving space sound but maybe without drums or bass?!?! And maybe have electronics and chants, or maybe not use structured rock songs but maybe an improvisational or experimental piece of music or maybe both?!?!? Perhaps something Aurally Innovative!!??!? But then it couldn't get played on Space Rock Radio. CLARAS VAGGVISA: Cool old school keyboards with bass and drums, sounds like some Iron Butterfly outtakes. THE VESSEL: Uptempo hard rocker, coool guitar, yes, all of these things. MASTER SLEEPS: And so do the servants...loping mid-tempo rocker with some synth drones, tasty bass and guitar riffage. It was begging for some vocals and here they come, and pretty damn cool vocals they are!! Nice and long, really goes into space. Hills have definitely progressed in their sound from the previous album, slicker, but not in a bad way. DEATH SHALL COME: Or shall it? Maybe we're dead now and we'll soon wake up to be "really" alive?!?! Ever think of that??.... slow chanty droney with spoken word vocals, very Space Ritual... a good thing... then goes into the twangy rock and roll thang. Oh, hell yeahhh!! Don't have a lyric sheet but I'd be interested in hearing what these guys are going on about! It sounds very heavy and Cosmiche....
For more info, visit: http://www.myspace.com/hhillss and http://www.transubstans.com
Reviewed by Carlton Crutcher