View Larger
Rate it!
Avg: 4.0 (336 ratings)
- Date Released: April 11, 2006
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Psychedelic Rock
- Label: Light In The Attic / IODA
New Age apocalypso from a Texas-based sextet of space cowboys.
-
We Say...
The Black Angels hail from Austin, Texas, bearing a geographic and spatial legacy inherited from the 13th Floor Elevators (ex-Elevator Tommy Hall, he of the jug and the metaphisique, penned a recent celebration of the Angels' fuzz-drone for the group’s website). Moving through such druidic touchstones as Jesus and Mary Chain, the Verve, and Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Black Angels plant themselves firmly with one foot on tribalstomp earth and the other in the stirrups of space cowboy.
Passover is their debut album, containing just a couple of the songs appearing on their introductory EP, and mind-expanding on that promise. Listening to the Black Angels descend into the meltdown that is "The Sniper at the Gates of Heaven," with its vaguely Indo-modals providing a layered and cumulus atmosphere, the feel is less Syd-era Pink Floyd than Hawkwind. Their genre is new age apocalypso, with storm-warning vocals more frontal than many space-core groups, and the lyrics bear parsing: the segue of "Young Men Dead" into "The First Vietnamese War" is hardly coincidental.
Nor is the reference point of their name, after the Velvet Underground's "Black Angels Death Song." Sterling Morrison, the Velvets' lead guitarist, wound up in Texas, and the Black Angels are the Velvets' "Prodigal Sun" come full circle, tom for tom-tom, guitars approaching escape velocity, in centrifugal gravitation. Like much mood-swing music, the effect is best taken cumulatively, a swirl of textural and perpetual in-motion that only approximates the Angels' live experience, where they perform before light projections and the hypnotic pulse of their strum and thrum. -
They Say...
"Black Grease" says it all, blackly: Austin's Black Angels temper stoned Black Sabbath drone with Black Keys bluesy bombast, producing a sort of boozy psychedelic White Light/White Heat in the process. The aforementioned song takes the record's central aesthetic idea and spirals it out of control. The shamanistic lyrics here rise as a single mantra of "Kill, kill, kill, kill," and the filthy reverberating guitars are kept to an acidic simmer, all so that Passover's real focus -- that is, Stephanie Bailey's insidious percussion -- reaches a level of unconscious insistence that feels almost locomotive, tumbling over itself too fast to safely stop. Other tracks, like seething, stately "Empire," wear the band's Velvet Underground influence more proudly, keeping the drums at a steady patter and letting the guitars scramble like rats up a well. Passover is a reactionary record, trading in Vietnam imagery and tired Doors tropes in places as easily as it does stoopid-awesome stoner rock in others, but it seems a reaction of the very best kind -- that is, free of agenda, full of ideas, and fun.
“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”
Rolling Stone
eMusic Tip
Paid downloads are counted towards an album discount but free downloads are not.
COMPLETE FOR FREE!
You can download the rest of the tracks from this album for free! Just click the Complete Album button.
We’re sorry this album can only be downloaded using paid subscription download credits.
We recommend you Save it for Later by clicking the Save for Later button shown just above this message. For a list of related albums you can download right now, check out these recommendations.
We'll give you 10 additional free credits to download this album and start your paid subscription.
Get 10 bonus credits on us if you download this album. Sweet!
| 01. |  |
Young Men Dead |
5:32 |
|
| 02. | |
The First Vietnamese War |
3:30 |
|
| 03. | |
The Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven |
4:16 |
|
| 04. | |
The Prodigal Sun |
4:22 |
|
| 05. | |
Black Grease |
4:32 |
|
| 06. | |
Manipulation |
5:49 |
|
| 07. | |
Empire |
5:35 |
|
| 08. | |
Better Off Alone |
3:03 |
|
| 09. | |
Bloodhounds On My Trail |
3:58 |
|
| 10. | |
Call To Arms |
18:06 |
|
10 Total Tracks, 58:43 Total Length
Loading...
Playlists If you like The Black Angels, check out these member playlists
Credits
- Dave Cooley - Mastering // Edvard Munch - Author // Erik Wofford - Engineer // Erik Wofford - Mixing // Brian Ashley Jones - Graphic Design // Stephanie Bailey - Percussion // Stephanie Bailey - Drums // Stephanie Bailey - Group Member // Christian Bland - Bass // Christian Bland - Guitar // Christian Bland - Vocals // Christian Bland - Graphic Design // Christian Bland - Group Member // Alex Maas - Bass // Alex Maas - Vocals // Alex Maas - Group Member // Jennifer Raines - Drones // Jennifer Raines - Group Member
Choose from over 7 million
music downloadseMusic features legendary and emerging artists in every genre: classic rock to classical,indie to international, soundtracks to spiritual, jazz to country and many more.
MP3 downloads work on any digital media player
With eMusic, you OWN your music without any restrictions. Burn music to a CD, play it on your computer, mobile phone or any digital media player - including iPod®, Zune® and Walkman®.
Songs available for 50¢ or less
eMusic subscriptions start at just $11.99 a month for 24 downloads - that's just 50¢ per song! And it gets better from there - our plans go as low as 42¢ per song!
Music Discovery
eMusic is about discovery. We make finding new music fun again with music recommendations from our award-winning team of music experts, member playlists and new music features.
Cancel anytime
With all the great music and site features we're pretty sure you will love eMusic. If not, no problem. You can cancel at any time and keep the music you have downloaded.
© 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC