LORDS OF FALCONRY "S/T" (Holy Mountain)

Scuzzed up reverb heavy warbling psych damage from this mysterious ensemble, coming off like Suicide as filtered through the Siltbreeze aesthetic. It's decent enough but nowhere near as impressive as it should be coming from the oft-excellent Holy Mountain camp; even more perplexing is the length of time it took to get this record out (it was in the works and slated for release well over a year ago but kept getting delayed) considering how short and simple it is.

Things charge out of the gate promisingly enough, with a fast paced JAMC style rock blitz by way of Kawabata Makoto, all whoops and howls screaming for prominence over a bed of ultra dirty guitar skeeze and drums that just barely keep up throughout its rote-rock gallop. It's an invigorating first track that keeps its momentum for seven minutes but after that the record just more or less gives up, and we're left with tired interpolations of the same. I i think i dislike the vocals most all, all pointless laconic Gira-esque drawl with nothing interesting or engaging to make them warrant the headspace they do. This album would have worked so much better as an instrumental affair-maybe without the limitation of vocals everything could have really spaced out and gone epic, realizing the hints of cosmic sprawl hidden in the grooves.

As is this is passable psych-rock done by guys who probably get all tore up and head out to the garage to rock out. There's a heavy alcohol vibe here and just a kiss of the drugs but i'd rather be listening to these same sounds from a more dangerous band, say the Black Lips (who do hangover music better than almost anyone) or fuck, maybe even the Brian Jonestown Massacre at their most confrontational (and yes, it pains me a little to say that, but i need you to know how really boring this record is). There's a lot of people working this angle much better than the Lords of Falconry, so much so that i can only chalk this one up to label hype and underground pizazz. Maybe these guys kick ass live, but their record doesn't really make me want to find out. A surprising miss from Holy Mountain.