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BONG  We Are, We Were And We Will Have Been  LP   (Ritual Productions)   25.98


���� The latest roar of monolithic doomdrone from the mighty Bong is another two-song exercise in longform psychcrush, each track taking up an entire side of the record. That seems to be the modus operandi for most of this British outfits releases, exploring their rumbling slow-motion spaciness through massively drawn-out walls of sound, but it works terrifically. As with their other recent output, We Are... is carved out of monolithic towering, terrible slabs of molten metallic rumble and vast psychedelic drift, continuing to combine classic space rock and kosmische drift with earth-shaking metallic psych-crush better than anyone.

���� The trance-state begins immediately as soon as that massive, distorted guitar drone trumpets across the opening seconds of "Time Regained", a vast and fearsome roar of churning ur-riff heaviness that's also slightly muffled, a huge Sunn-esque churn hazed by streaks of spacey electronics and slowly joined by the drummer's languid backbeat. Again, Bong proceeds to do a lot with very little, letting this mammoth drone-rock jam billow out for nearly twenty minutes, never releasing that single monochord roar that throbs at the center of the music like a malignant engine, tracing the sound with those bleary psych-guitar figures and the slowly propulsive groove of the rhythm section, the singer eventually drifting in with his monotone chant. The whole thing creeps further out into the interstellar void, eventually abandoning the drums completely as they finally go floating out into oblivion, adrift on waves of black wah-drenched amplifier roar.

���� The spoken word piece that opens "Find Your Own Gods" evokes the feel of classic British fantasy, an influence that's popped up in other Bong works and helps give their stuff a uniquely esoteric vibe; it's almost like something from Arthur Machen being read over a field of glimmering, black stardrift slowly unfolding into another lush, rumbling doomscape. The track also takes on a more cinematic feel, with heavy layers of dramatic, ominous synth flowing over the beginning like a Tangerine Dream score, flecked with delay-drenched guitar and pulses of hypnotic bass. A menacing, minimal riff takes form alongside the patter of hand drums, and it evolves into a striking piece of dark, dolorous psychedelia, a gorgeous opiated space-metal epic slowed down to glacial crawl, enveloping and intoxicating as it teases at erupting into something even more obliterating.

���� Available on both digipak CD and 180 gram vinyl.


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