BLACK OM RISING
www.brainwashed.com
Matthew Amundsen
What sets the band apart from other instrumental psych groups, besides their occasional synth, is their use of the saxophone, particularly on songs like "Ra" and "Lo III." Its playing is alternately soaring or frenetic, complementing the music perfectly and giving it a unique identity. Although all of the musicians are uniformly excellent, drummer Bruno Motik in particular stands out on tracks such as "Lo III" and "Daktari." His unconventional style brings a welcome urgency to these songs.
Unlike the work of some other instrumental groups, there is never a sense that these songs are lacking vocals. Their ever-evolving arrangements provide all the entertainment they need. The band goes from whirring electronics to tribal beats to straight-ahead rock to ear-shattering freakouts with ease. They are always full of surprises, even ending the album's finale, "Tearjerker," with an airy, palette-cleansing guitar cloud.
The flipside of the CD is a DVD of one of the band's live performances. While generally the bonus material that supplements an album tends to be of average or sub-par quality, this concert footage is actually pretty good. It doesn't waste time with any artsy gimmicks and shows the band under decent lighting, capturing their music with good sound quality. The songs themselves don't stray too far from how they sound on the album proper, but that's only a minor complaint. Since I'm not sure if I'll ever have the chance to see them live, it's nice to have this footage.
There seems to be a dearth of quality rock these days, but Black Om Rising goes a long way toward proving that wrong. Lacking any fashionable pretensions, the group simply lets their music speak for itself in all of its dazzling glory.
http://www.psychemusic.org/prog22.htmlanchor_327
Gerald
"Black OM rises to claim us all" the booklet says, with the image of a shadowed sun. -This particular night, when I reviewed this album, there was a partial solar eclipse-.
…I remember some important historical events during solar eclipses. Remember how, when Christ was crucified after betrayal, in order to get rid of a possibility for change for the Jewish belief system and for the Roman ruling powers, at the moment that he so called passed away, there was a solar eclipse (besides that the big temple floor broke in two). His crucifixion had to become an example, and also was abused in a typical Roman way for turning this moment into a fundament for a religion later on. This fact did not happen "for saving the sins of the world", but to save two sorts of traditions : the Jewish and the Roman (selfish) constructions. The later, newly formed Roman-Christian religion was invented to change the people's memory of something different behind the stories. The incomplete picture of Jesus' life and death, combined the useful tool of his strange psychology because he always kept in mind a spiritual father in heaven, because he had no other Fatherly example to focus upon, this story became the easiest to handle tool for a totally different purpose. This could bring the idea of God outside man, and would praise the sacrifice to the cross, as if it is a sacrifice to Society. Their new religion did unite God and Society into one unit, the Church, staying safely outside man's own development. It would also, thanks to another small wrong translation, place also evil, as the shadow of deeds and actions of people and society, and of course also their own actions outside man's reach, range and perspective. It would also proclaim the benefit of a Unity (reaching towards a variety in philosophy and personalities, for the sake of a blind trust in a mono-opinion governed Society) at all costs, and -in the name of God-, which is ruled by Society. The whole original tradition of discovering wisdom and methods to unify to a complete form creativity and awareness that almost became popularised by some men, like Jesus, with this, was destroyed and wiped out of history, together with all other more clear examples of its kind, and were replaced by certain well cooperating thoughts for that purpose how to form (the rules for) the world's three biggest religions.
Another important eclipse happened when the Spanish conquerors established a forced agreement with the Indians in America to take over their land. Also this was another important moment of betrayal the results which would develop to something different for many years to come. The rights for the civilisation and for the people of that land also never truly recovered...
A solar eclipse, symbolically, takes away for a moment the attention to the natural spirit of development, like the seed for visions needed for the life giving nature of developments. At that moment the 'shadow' of all things ruling underneath could eventually take advantage of that lost moment of belief in this natural development. Be careful of its actions then! Because Light and true Life are really always behind the sun, -a force of life-, while the powers which are decided by the shadows of things, brings death to whatever they decide to destroy, and when established during a solar eclipse, they seem to be able to maintain this for a very long time.
The solar eclipse is also a symbol for the hardest and true sacrificing challenge, to put aside the dearest aspects so that in the abyss of no participation, the essence could eventually still win the game because it really is only out of it's sight and nothing more. So even for some evil evolutions, maintaining its own life by multiplying its own flesh, far outside their visions on historical evolutions, outside a logical maintaining by restrictions, through stubborn constructions of power, certain essences still grew further elsewhere for a later date of appearance in the darkest need. This shaped Society did not notice Christ's further travels to Tibet, or the native Indian's silent development of a minimal essence for our later survival after a moment when the land will be no longer fertile.
Myself, looking at the front cover of The Seven That Spells new album, I have my own moments of disconnection in moments of failed concentration, attracted by these lovely sexy beautifully bosomed girls, distractions that will return my energy to its basics, while my inner, silent watcher still grows in stages of retreat, through an unseen growth process with "Buddhist" powers to make appearances that are able to reveal all connections of things, while the standard being me just seems equally limited and distracted, just like anybody, absorbed into the world's energy, with failure, because like everybody we feel we need to be part of this world, even when it is also a participation with its disconnection. But there are also other energies which have developed into the new shadows of things..
-Maybe with each solar eclipse we could remind ourselves how there is light behind the sun, and how we now and then could face the shadows of this Society, and the need to give a rightful place to light as a creative unifying power working upwards allowing life.-
After having listened to so many lazy psych jams too often, of low energies trying to speed it up with tensions of escapisms from this world's energy, it most often is not able to change that stagnant essence really. I almost forgot the true powers of psychedelia, the breaking through borders with complex rhythms and overload effects in harmonic sounds. And I am again absolutely amazed by Seven That Spells, who are able to restore that true essence for me. It takes the vague haze away, and leads to the true essence of the jam : the skills (and on another level, knowledge, against ignorant laziness) to do something more. It is no miracle to hear how Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Koenji Hyakkei,..) did the mastering. He did not play, but also Bruno Motik's drumming masters his drums. Great also to hear sax as one of the instruments, to break free. This music gives energy, and does not let any detail escape into smoke, while this is Fire.
http://www.popboks.com/
Nikola Marković
Zagrebački psihodelični rockeri Seven That Spells su perjanica instrumentalne scene i jedan od retkih balkanskih bendova koji aktivno nastupa i izdaje albume van ovih prostora
8/10
Početak rada benda Seven That Spells, slučajno ili ne, vremenski se podudara sa prvim zagrebačkim koncertom ekscentričnog japanskog psy/prog/rock sastava Acid Mothers Temple krajem 2002. godine. Ispostaviće se da je ovo bio tek prvi u nizu koncerata koje će Japanci održati u Zagrebu, i simboličan početak prijateljstva dva benda srodne orijentacije.
Saradnja je naročito intenzivirana u poslednjih par godina, tokom kojih se Makoto Kawabata, gitarista i frontmen Acid Mothers Templea, pojavljivao kao gostujući muzičar na koncertima i studijskim izdanjima Seven That Spellsa, a kulminaciju je dosegla ovog leta, kada je hrvatski sastav, uz Kawabatinu pomoć, otišao na svoju prvu japansku turneju!
Sasvim očekivano, Seven That Spells su stil izgradili na kosmičkim stazama kojima su koračali i Kawabata i njegova družina, i na kojima glavno mesto zauzimaju prog-rock 70-ih godina prošlog veka, hendriksovske neobuzdane solaže i modulirani zvuci sintisajzera.
Na albumu Black Om Rising sve ove stilske reference i dalje su prisutne. Ipak, u odnosu na prethodna studijska izdanja, bend zvuči svirački sigurnije, raznovrsnije, i sa izraženijim autorskim pečatom.
Čak i kada se služe prepoznatljivim žanrovskim kanonima, Seven That Spells ih kombinuju na iznenađujuće načine: jednostavni repetitivni pasaži bivaju presecani naglim ritmičkim promenama, melanholični postrockerski zvučni zastori nas uvode u punokrvni noise masakr, a razuzdana gitarska sola se smenjuju sa oštrim, funkoidnim bas-deonicama.
Raznovrsnosti albuma doprinose i numere u kojima bend odustaje od pitkih rock melodija i prelazi na polje psihodeličnih eksperimenata. RA donosi dinamičnu igru bubnjeva i saksofona u kojoj početna tema sve više varira i gubi se u kovitlacu izmešanih zvukova, dok završna Tearjerker, nakon kratkog i žestokog uvoda, ostaje bez ritam-sekcije, da bi skliznula u ambijentalni drone.
Pored vešte stilske kombinatorike, treba istaći i zavidnu disciplinu benda: na ovom albumu nećete čuti beskonačno ponavljanje gitarskih fraza, samozadovoljna sola ili pesme duže od 10 minuta. Prazan hod je sveden na minimum.
Seven That Spells su bend koji izdaje albume na američkoj etiketi, nastupa i na Zapadu i na Istoku, dok ga na matičnoj sceni prati verni krug fanova. Za ljubitelje instrumentalnog rocka u Srbiji, gde su i dalje malo poznati, ovaj album je idealna polazna tačka za upoznavanje pred dugu ljubav.
THE MEN FROM DYSTOPIA
losingtoday.com
There's always a sense of a celebratory spot of bunting hanging in our gaff when a Beta Lactam Ring package rears into view on our door mat, trouble is we have so much fun soaking ourselves in the eclectic and often - it should be said - disturbing sounds of their catalogue that we almost forget to write up the reviews. There you go a moment of honesty never did anyone any harm until of course they chuck you off the mailing list.
The most recent dispatch from the BLRR stable features outing for perennial favourites here - Volcano the Bear, LSD March, Soriah and George and Caplin - though sadly the latter never made it to the parcel though the press release is intact (maybe we could review that) - all of course will be getting the critical once over shortly. However notwithstanding the gems within - and remember there is a VTB release which to momentarily ignore is akin to having an itch you can't scratch - the release that caught us square between the eyes is this little beast from Croatian ensemble Seven that Spells.
One for the psychedelic purists. Those much in love with looping mantras coiled in Arabesque swirls freewheeling upon a tripping odyssey towards mind expanding enlightenment should have these dudes on your cosmic radar and if not should be making a sharpish dash towards the nearest Tibetan travel ticket machine in order to book yourself a place on this volcanic and monolithic 73 minute cerebral cruise liner.
'the men from Dystopia' is an unrelenting primordial shake down feast of scorched freak outs, monastic grandeur, fried fret work sublimely melded into a titanic white hot 5 part firmament of brain mulching slow freak psyche that within reveals in Niko Potocnjak a guitarist cut from the same cloth as his talisman and sole inspirational source Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple fame (who incidentally appears here applying some masterful and dare we say unworldly things with an electric sitar and hurdy-gurdy) and of whom it can be said has been sun kissed by the drug induced sonic white out spectre of Hendrix.
'The Men from Dystopia' is essentially one elongated suite divided up into 5 parts not so much with a view to relieving you of the endurance levels needed to tackle it head on but no doubt serving as some kind of concerned health warning fearing that a fair few passengers won't make the return journey.
In terms of texture and delivery its closest peer not withstanding the obvious comparisons to AMT are fellow Beta Lactam psych blues overlords Green Milk from the Planet Orange while in recent memory one only needs dip into the more out there moments of Psychic TV's recent 'Hell is Invisible, Heaven is Her/e' to locate a common ally in terms of venturing
Symbiotically threaded together each of the five parts exists in its spatial dimension, picking the baton left by its predecessor its shifts ever steadily with finite precision through the intoxicated states of lysergic flux towards of inner Karma reaching critical mass at 'IV' wherein the intensity and density that has so far been steadily gathering mass, form and dimension up to this point suddenly collides into a mammoth out there skull fuck. From the initial chilled out bliss personas of the ceremonial like spooked soft psyche folk chiming overtures of 'I' sumptuously adrift with key washes all the time adding the component ingredients (cosmika florets and chanting recitals delivered by trappist monks on a bad trip) to the swamping brew. 'II' ups the ante ever so gently incorporating a fixed set kraut throw back groove while decorating the spectacle with mirage like swirls. Yet its 'III' that provides the sets centrepiece, a superbly executed riff rampage - fractured and fried, visceral and volatile - it's a true 16 minute wig flipping freaked out fuzz core experience of barrier decimating proportions. Personally though - for me the albums best moment arrives with 'IV' - a frazzled and chaotic cauldron where for once the psyche-tropic rule book is lashed aside in favour of the unravelling, corrupting and corroding dissipating overtures spliced between nose bloodying tensely equipped drone montages scared by moments of rabid sonic assaults - listen a little closer and it sounds like a hallucinogenic highland fling. 'V' naturally brings everything full circle - the come down - unsettling and eerie the moods and textures evaporating and as with dream like states confused and concussed until the calming influence of the monastic chants bring all to a logical closure.
Immense stuff - a colossal substance free head trip - the man from Dystopia - he say yeah - oh bloody hell I couldn't resist it okay.
corazine.com
Neverending waves from a psychedelic ocean crash over the listener. The extended delirium of "The Men From Dystopia" blends classic psychedelia mixed with Eastern mystical flavors and experimentalism. Seven That Spells strangely finds a way to anchor its music in strains of the familiar - thanks to its relationship to psyche and acid rock - while also generating a sense of xenophobia and disconnect. It's the Beta-lactam Ring Records aesthetic with sort of an old school zing, culminating in a future-retro spasm. At times, the music can admittedly drone on a bit, but at the same time, the album is mesmerizing and hypnotic in quirky, disturbing and fascinating ways.
progressive.homestead.com
This Croatian powerrock group got assistance from Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple,…). The now very much psychedelic music sounds like going first towards a sonic overload, pushed by someone who wants to lead like Yahowa 13 but is as crazy as hell (he's a man from Distopia, so it has been conceptualized). It does not end with one track. Somehow there's a peyote/mescaline-Indian be-the-fire-dance, ritualistic communal drive in the monotone rhythmic pulsations/or "melody". Then, within this sonic vacuum cleaner you can start to hear an electric sitar flipping on the dance. I could almost sing along with "heho-haho", mantra-wise, with the spiralling focus. Heavenly female vocalists (-preferably nude, for the sake of the concept-) then starts to sing along on the background. By the third track a freaking wild electric guitar improvises on top of all that, and the band goes weird with it with more sonic spacey effects, and more bass-with-drum drive, taking off. This wild guitar continues for a while and manages to "wow" me the whole way through, holding my breath and attention and then looking for breath again, more than once. Then wordy-like pushes starts all over to lead again the dance, with the whole band behind them like a living draconic energy. The sonic mass begins to roar with moving-in-the-air cosmic fluting overtones as a new entity. This seems to bring the band down to a first closing part. The band then transforms into a kind of sequenced sonic washing machine loop, with the beautiful sounds of overtones following them, and with wild high toned guitars dissolved into the turmoil of sounds. But thoroughly the guitar finds some individual shape in the heavy brooding monster, and from inside, or from the bottom it starts to feed it trying to make it move. Instead the energy fades out a bit, in the next track. In a Nurse With Wound feeling of overtones, the psychedelic guitars fades away like directed lava, with some electricity. Distant voices cry from hell deeper down the trail, not for help, but to participate in the firey bliss. Then from underneath the rhythmical foot tapping dance rhythms and communal vocals appears one last time from a distance, not with an extra sitar this time but with a hurdy gurdy to it, while the fluting sounds dominate the psychedelic underground. Cymbal echoing effects subtly fly around it. The music fades out and the communal vocals keeps the tension high (with hurdy gurdy), while the rest of the sounds drones away.
www.terrascope.co.uk
Hailing from Croatia Seven That Spells include in their ranks one Kawabata Makoto (for this release at least) who is confined to electric sitar, Tamburo and Hurdy Gurdy, such is the extraordinary power of guitarist Niko Potocnjak. Opening with a swirl of synth, an eastern guitar riff picks up the groove, the music sounding like U.S. Kaleidoscope, slowly however, the intensity builds, Ashra Tempel joining the party as the sounds get wilder and weirder, the guitar running across the piece like a golden thread to heaven. Suddenly you realise that 15 minutes has passed and you are deep into track two, a twenty minute epic sounding like Quicksilver jamming with every modern Japanese Psych band you can think of, a holy wall of noise that could stop wars and raise the Dead.
Just as you think the band are peaking, track three goes into freakout meltdown mode, the band holding onto an echo of the melody whilst throwing out everything non-essential to the trip, off into hyperspace and grinning wildly. Slightly slower and more drone laden, track four gives Mono a run for their money, a floating cloud of noise and derangement that cloaks everything in a veil of stars. Finally track five allows the band to dissolve, fusing their molecules into an endlessly drifting sphere of light, that shimmers across 14 minutes, leaving a single lotus petal waving in the breeze.
www.regenmag.com
Rooted in the noisy, experimental psychedelia of Krautrock acts like Amon Duul II and Cluster, Croatian band Seven that Spells offers up a single piece, split into five untitled parts and barely constrained by the 78-minute time limit of the audio CD. It begins innocuously enough with a finger-picked guitar theme, orbiting in synth ether and accompanied by droning chants, but as the guitar starts to wobble from its orbit and the blissful chanting turns to primal growls, things take a definite turn toward the freaky. By the time the manic wailing and electric sitar jamming kick in, you know the next hour or so is going to get pretty crazy. But while Seven that Spells' extended experimentations range from thick, almost ambient bass guitar droning all the way into effects-drenched feedback jams, it's all held together by a hypnotic motif of guitar chords that the band returns to again and again. Separating The Men from Dystopia from their German forefathers are hints of folk tradition, with the tambur - a long-necked lute used in folk traditions throughout Europe and Central Asia - adding what would seem to be a distinct Croatian touch. Ironically though, the tambur player is none other than Kawabata Makoto of legendary Japanese psychedelic rock group Acid Mother Temple, whose bassist, Tsuyama Atsushi, also shows up to add some vocal yelps to the cacophony. In the best Krautrock tradition, even at their most self-indulgent and noisy, Seven that Spells still manages to be compelling, thanks to that almost-subliminal rhythm running beneath all the feedback and guitar noodling, and The Men from Dystopia occasionally verges on beautiful, especially near the end, when hollow chanting and guitar strums give way to lovely wordless vocal harmonies. Between the political implications of the album title and the naked women adorning the cover art, it's a bit tough to parse what message the group is trying to convey, if any, but this isn't music for reading into. It's music for drifting away on, and if you listen deeply enough there's no telling where it might take you.
www.blogsandiego.com
Goodness Gracious it's been a long while since I've heard such mangled beauty. It's as though these Croatian freaks (along with Kawabata and Tsuyama from the ALMIGHTY Acid Mother's Temple!!) have taken every rural folk song from their country, dipped it straight into some gooey psychedelic lightshow liquid and commenced to sprinkle it over their heads.
The going gets weird right away with some plucked sitar and tambura. These lines of brain massaging melody run smack into a pounding mono-riff from Hell and subsequently ride on waves of plinking, plonking and swishing synth lines. Although it's divided into 5 separate tracks there is no real division here. It's all one big MASSIVE meltdown and psychedelic endurance test. The guitar is a high light, letting loose with crazy and way over the top solos. These are of course some of the high lights of the disc. It's as though every Hendrix lick ever recorded has been condensed into one blurry laser gun blast and it's aimed at a pack of wild cavemen who scatter to the four corners of the Earth to found new religions based on feedback and volume.
There's no real letup for the whole 70 plus minute ride. You simply sit down, strap in and hold on. Or don't… Maybe you should just crank this sucker up and let it blast all of the talk of recession/stimulus, Hilary/Obama, Love/Hate, Right/Wrong and any other notion right out of the folds of your over stimulated brain. Let the walls come crumbling down for a change. We could spend weeks analyzing this molten chunk of spiky psychedelia but why bother? It's more enjoyable to simply let these freak-power currents give your nervous system a reset and boost.
www.winterlight.jp/review/january5.html
IT CAME FROM THE PLANET OF LOVE
"This is absolutely immense. The two tracks take up the entire 52 minutes of the album, by which time you will be dribbling slightly and talking about luminous green crucifixes in the mirror. Everything you could possibly want and more from the instrumental, progressive, psychedelic, experimental rock combo that previously brought you "My Mommy Wants To Kiss Your Mamma". Wibble...
SPACE ROCK UK
http://www.space-rock.co.uk
Just when I've put in this baby the trip started... straight in the brain with fuzzed out guitars, mindblowing solos, great drumming and weird noises. Let's say this CD is a big jam with a lot of nice moments that'll help you to reach a deeper high. Well done and psychedelic fans all over the planet should check out these guys... only god knows on what stuff they're on!
DAREDEVIL MAGAZINE
http://www.daredevil.de/
There are two long tracks on this CD... The first one, over 30 minutes long track starts in a laid back manner and slowly grows with humming cymbals. At the two and a half minute marker the rhythm joins in and begins a heavy acid rock jam. The space sounds that were introduced already on the previous album are again there to gibe the music an extraterrestrial feel. There plenty of time for all kinds of things to happen in a track this long, of course. Amazing stuff! The other track starts in an easy mood, too, but then it explodes into merciless freak out rocking. In the middle there is some more peaceful ljamming. The track fades out at about 13 minutes, and after that there comes about five minutes of minimal hiss and drone. This is pretty strong album, as well, and worth buying if you’re into Acid Mother Temple styled improvised acid rock with some remnants of the 60’s and 70’s.
Santtu Lakso
http://www.unimeri.com/PsychotropicZone/
MY MOMMY WANTS TO KISS YOUR MAMMA
Seven That Spells are an all instrumental guitar/bass/drums/synthesizer quartet from Croatia that play heavy rocking, spaced out psychedelic freakouts that are like a cross between Acid Mothers Temple and the earliest Guru Guru. Some of the tracks are more AMT than AMT, with a fantastic guitarist who goes acid apeshit á la Kawabata Makoto. On other tracks the band are similar but in a completely spaced out early 70's cosmic Krautrock jamming style. Track titles like Space Cake Overload and Bliss My Cosmic Peach pretty much sum it up. Really hot stuff!
Jerry Kranitz
http://aural-innovations.com
Croatian instrumental band Seven That Spells is a quartet consisting of Guitarist Niko Potocnjak, Drummer Stjepan Jurekovic, Bassist Tomislav Kalousek and Keyboard player Hrvoje Niksic. At first, their debut (Released through the Russian label RAIG), an oddly named, My Mommy Wants To Kiss Your Momma was quite a turn-off. So much so that I was really dreading what the music would sound like. I thought it was probably going to be some lame hard rock band.
Being that I always approach new (or new to me) music with an open mind, I curiously put the disc into my portable player. Upon listening to the album, my original short-sighted assesment was quickly and thankfully dispelled. The band was actually much to my pleasant surprise, a psychedelic jam rock, which pays homage to the late 60's-early 70's psych/prog scene. To get a basic idea on what the band sounds like, take equal parts of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd with a Jimi Hendrix style guitar playing combined with instrumental stylings of the more recent band, Ozric Tentacles to name a few.
Ron Fuchs http://www.geocities.com/prognaut/
The title track kicks off the album and clocks in at over 12 minutes. All of the other songs are between the three to seven minute mark. For the most part the songs are more like jam sessions, well done ones at that, and tend to go the self-indulgent route but the band. The whole album is a frenzied experience that has some aimless meanderings at times but overall the music is top-notch quality. I’d like to hear the band scale down their future compositions and leave the meandering for their live shows (if any). So if you like jam based psych/prog, then you must go get Seven That Spells’ My Mommy Wants To Kiss Your Momma today. Go now!!!
Well, 7 that Spells is back with another full on psychedelic rock attack. I reviewed the bands debut, which I liked very much. It was full on guitar soloing Hendrix influenced acid rock. The band have stepped things up here and eaten a few tabs of Acid Mothers temple but the core feeling is the same in this instrumental acid rock. The addition of synthesizer on a few tracks makes things a bit more spaced but Niko's guitar playing is still super psyched! The CD begins with the title track and slowly builds up before the main guitar riff and soloing and psych rock! synth sounds kick in and off we go…. Psych rock trip begins for 54 minutes. I highly recommend this Croatian band.
Scott Heller
http://www.lowcut.dk
This debut from Croatian instrumental band Seven That Spells is a rambling, psychedelic, acid rock freak out jam session, which pays homage to the late 60's-early 70's psych/prog scene. Think of a head on collision between Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Ozric Tentacles. The songs here are basically rocket fueled jam sessions, launching pads for guitarist Niko Potocnjak to hurl out molten shards of distorted, wah-wah laced solos, while the rhythm team of drummer Stjepan Jurekovic and bassist Tomislav Kalousek lay down a frantic groove. Keyboard player Hrvoje Niksic adds in plenty of noodling, chirps and blips, giving songs like "Merry Mary's Sweet Inferno" and "Space Cake Overload" that spacey feel. On "Black Liquorice/Tragic Boredom of the Universe", the band goes for a slower, more atmopsheric build-up before Potocnjak unleashes a torrent of violent guitar solos.
If you like frenzied wah-wah guitar indulgences, you've come to the right place. My Mommy Wants to Kiss Your Mamma will be a bit too repetitive and meandering for some, but there's no denying the talent of the players here. I'd say that a little more attention to actual songs might do these guys some good, but I think they set out to do exactly what they wanted to do here. The "jam from hell" album of 2005? Perhaps.
Pete Pardo
http://www.seaoftranquility.org/
The SEVEN THAT SPELLS’ first full-length album, My Mommy Wants To Kiss Your Mamma is a high-intensity, brain-damaged, extreme-instrumental psychedelic freakout. With a marching chime wrapping up a wonderfully unpredictable performance, the music trips out in a strong fashion shifting between obscured space-drones and heavy stone-assaults to elegant guitar filigrees and acid-washed jammings. The tracks segue into each other almost seamlessly, as if they were movements in a single piece, and carry one on a journey so far-fetched and free-spreading, the passenger shall be hard-pressed to catch what happened by the album’s conclusion. The line-up features Stjepan Jurekovic on drums, Tomislav Kalousek on bass, Hrvoje Niksic on synthesizer, and guitarist and leader Niko Potocnjak. The band is at its peak right now, taking their music to new spaces and dimensions, and should be paid careful attention to.
www.raig.ru
THE BLOWOUT
Welcome to Zagreb, Croatia, home of Nikach, Deda and Mali, three pimps on angeldust, responsible for this 28-minute instrumental devillish crowley-made piece of ass kickin’ rock dubbed The Blowout.
« La via della prostituzione » erupts out of your speakers, with Nikach guitar seeming more like Hendrix, Eric Johnson (Mariani), Randy Holden (Blue Cheer), Terry Swope (JPT Scare Band) or Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), while Mali (drums) and Deda (bass) easily stand by firm. Nikach immediately shows his talent on the guitar, with his incredible ability to create a marathon of brain shredding solos without even a stop at his favourite red light district. « Rosie’s house of pleasure » is sandwiched between the pounding, rhythmic Primusish -slap-percussion and the insane Acid Mother Temple’s six-string samurai Kawabata Makoto-like guitar whirlwinds to create 7 minutes of retro full-speed fuzzrawk bliss, the kind of pornodelic acid rock 7 That Spells excels at. They 've got an erotic joie de vivre evidenced in song titles such as « B-side of the universe », « Radio Luxemburg orbital station of love » and « 69th door to Venus ». Seven That Spells throw five ‘forget the foreplay, let’s get rough’ blowouts, rubbing it in until the grooves have screwed into the cells of your brain which direct you again to « La via della prostituzione ». This time I give you the advice to follow your dick.
Cosmicmasseur http://www.concreteweb.be/index2.html
I have to say this was the coolest thing I have heard in a few months. I have never heard of any bands from Croatia before but I sure hope they all sound like this one! Seven that Spells are a three piece acid rock combo from Zagreb and they know how to rock. This is totally retro Hendrix fuelled acid rock at its best. These guys really have a great feel, sound and groove and the guitar player knows how to take the music out into the deep space and suck you back in just in time before you feel like you might get lost out there in the great void of the acid rock universe they create. There are no more words to describe this limited pressing of 100 CDs. Get this... it is a must have for all free form acid rock heads.
Scott Heller
http://aural-innovations.com
Seven That Spells "The Blowout" (www.7thatspells.com) Five instrumental songs in just over twenty eight and a half minutes. This trio from Zagreb, Croatia started life as a guitar and bass duo, but soon added a friend to play drums.
Within no time they were pummeling the surrounding region (as if their region of the planet hasn't been pummeled enough), but this brutality is confined to the creativity of their intense instrumental interplay. The bass holds the groove but is not repetitous, he dances around the rhythm, and keeps pace with the drummer, who drives right down the middle, leaving room for the guitar to bloom in vast scorched radiant unfurlings of solar fireworks. Reference points include: 70s stoner rock, SubArachnoid Space, Kinski, Paik, Acid Mothers Temple, and 60s psychedelia at it's most heavily overamped.
George Parsons http://www.dreamgeo.com
7 that Spells is a wild psychedelic jam band from Croatia. I reviewed their debut CD called The Blowout a few months back. This live DVD was recorded on May 20th, 2004 and captures about 40 minutes of the bands madness. As well as the concert you have biography and contact info, a picture gallery and the complete Blowout CD audio included. The band lives porno as reflected in the topless women on all the menus and the bands song titles. The DVD was shot with 3 cameras (it would appear) and camera audio as well. The guitar is too low in the mix for my tastes but the raw energy of the performance is captured well. The DVD begins with La Via della Prostituzione from the Blowout CD and it is a totally wild guitar freakout session. Next up is 69th Door To Venus with some wild guitar torture as the band grooves. These are much more freaked out versions than the CD, which I prefer. Rosies House Of Pleasure has a great groove laid down by the bass and drums for Nikach to play some insane acid wah guitar over the top. Mary's Sweet Inferno has an extra drummer (female) and synth player joining the group. Now they move more towards some space rock but lacking a bit of control. Bliss My Cosmic Peach is a slower moving spaced out psych fest and perhaps the coolest song of the short performance. Check this cool band out for sure!
Scott Heller
http://aural-innovations.com