Labels: Thrill Jockey
Review by: james pacanowski
Featuring Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless/Howlin Rain fame, Golden Void are a continuation of his affinity for heavy 70’s psycheledia. From the echoing and nasal vocals, fuzzy guitars, Rick Wakeman organs, frequent drum rolls right on down to the slightly naff duotone aesthetic on the cover – everything is steeped in the tradition of bands like Black Sabbath and Hawkwind.
Sounds good, however, this is an album that’s mostly at it’s best with its shaggy head down and foot heavy on the accelerator. The first two tracks, ‘Art of Invading’ and ‘Virtue’ are good examples of this; third track, ‘Jetsun Dolma’, is an example of where things go wrong “” when the band slow down and begin to meander to places already documented and occupied by the bands they reference so heavily (with wah-wah pedal embarassingly in tow). When they are rocking, I could not really care less whether it’s been done before; when they aren’t, I wonder really what the point is.