The 6 minute title track starts with an almost classic Steve Hillage-styled intro as the guitar lead is just on fire over the rolling rhythms and sea of synths and fx that's going on behind. The guitar solos to mesmerizing degree as the singer enters to deliver the lyrics with an almost religious fervor, commenting on the way that modern politicians are letting everything go to rot, and doing it in a way that really makes you sit up and take notice. Amid the guitar that's ringing, echoing, pulsing and flying out of the airwaves, the rhythms that are going along like an on-time express train, and a vast sounding background, there's even a hook to the song as the riff becomes the thing that musically sticks around in your head alongside the chorus and as a slice of socio-political psychedelic rock, it works a treat.
"Ultra Violet" sets an almost Daevid Allen-esque rant to some sizzling guitar riffing, rock solid drumming, pounding bass and expansive production as our North West of England accented vocalist gives us a lyric that's full of bitterness and tension. Then, mid-song, there's this searing heat if brief guitar lead that's amazing before the singer returns and the song continues to unfold its observational imploring lyrics with an almost evil menace, as the guitar lead bursts in between the choruses.
"The Delivery Man" is a surging slice of galloping psych-rock that's so on the edge, it's as if it's going to fall off any second, the treated vocals full of venom one minute and the soaring hook, the next as the stomping beats suddenly dissolve into whirlpools of fuzzed guitars and fx, then back again as the song swings to and fro to dramatic effect.
"Hologram" lurches, twists and turns its rhythms and guitar leads in an almost Zappa-esque mode as the vocals are almost Tom Waits-esque at the beginning before turning into a rasping rant over the stumbling rhythms, bursts of guitar, cascading riffs and almost out-of-tune end point before they rescue it and take it back into a swirling soundscape of heated guitars, now hypnotic vocals and lurching rhythms, quite disconcerting on first listen but the more you get used to it, the more it makes sense as the Hillage-esque guitar and throbbing bass end the piece to perfection amid the slowly unwinding vocals.
"Semantic Change" is a tad Gong-like but overall is a song that, while commanding your attention, tends to roll along letting the lyrics do their stuff for most of the track, while there's a guitar lead and rhythm going on in the background that's really the star of the track and is the thing that sticks in your head as it goes, the rhythms propelling it all along in solid rolling fashion. A heated lead guitar break cuts through to exciting effect as it all slowly lifts off and delivers with intent.
"Stupid Guitarist" takes the influences from Daevid Allen's solo works and turns them on their head as our vocalist intones and speaks and sings over this amazing swirling guitar backdrop that 's got echo, delay and sustain as the strums and fuzz fill your head to wondrous degree that the lyrics, also delivered with fx on the vocal in part, sit alongside the guitar and fx to excellent effect on what is a song - or more a slice of poetry - that, like a lot of Allen's work, really shouldn't deliver the goods yet it works brilliantly. At just short of 9 minutes,
"Modus Operandi" is the longest track on the album and, in many ways, the most introspective, although still delivering the song with passionate ranting cynicism, this time over a backing that's spiky, dissonant, almost out of control, yet somehow in keeping with the venom of the lyrical delivery as the piece unfolds more by accident than design, stumbling, lurching and falling into view as guitars chime, electronics flow underneath and all manner of guitars and fx twist and turn and thunder over the almost unnerving vocalising - very dark and disturbing. Finally, there's,
"Age Of Light" as we are treated to an outro of flowing, driving, lurching psych-rock that's arguably the most "normal" thing on here and with a rhythm that defies you not to move along with it, a guitar that rings out to perfection and a vocal that veers between phased and sung but always filled with passion and observational bitterness, as the whole thing is irresistible and, again arguably, the most commercial track on the album - if you were going to introduce someone to this band as a first hearing, this would be the track that you'd play them. Overall, it's unique, it works, it's tense, it's going to make you think and it's psych-rock which wears its influence on its sleeve, a sleeve that's part of a whole new coat of many colours.
(Reviewed by Andy Garibaldi (Dead Earnest) 05-12)
http://www.deadearnest.btinternet.co.uk