Austin Sound

Darkness is key. Every writer who attempts to wrap their head around the Black Angels mentions the music’s eerie darkness, but most fail to realize that this goes to the very core of what the band is about. The band’s gothic quality is often haunting, sometimes apocalyptic, and always the factor that sets the Black Angels apart from other psychedelic bands. Most reviews reference Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now and, upon listening, the analogy is obvious. The music and lyrics draw the listener into a world that is hostile and unknowable. Indeed, the band’s music is almost literary in its unrelenting gloominess - a quality that puts them as much in line with bands like Bauhaus and The Jesus And Mary Chain as with their self proclaimed psych-rock influences.

On their second album, Directions To See A Ghost, the Black Angels have taken this aesthetic and run with it - creating a record that is darker, noisier, and more groove-heavy than their 2006 debut, Passover. Many of the elements are the same -fuzzed-out guitars, pulsing tremelos, rich bass, drone - but this time around “mood” is the focus. This is a product of the album’s song structure (or lack thereof). Directions To See A Ghost has the band almost completely abandoning the verse / chorus structure, opting instead for longer, slower jams that explore single themes. Alex Maas’s voice, once the center of attention, is now buried alongside other instruments.

This is certainly a risky approach, but it compliments the band perfectly. “You On The Run” is the Black Angels at their best - fuzzy, droney, morbid, and paranoid. The song is instantly likeable; the album is worth owning for this track alone. “Mission District” builds (in a Jefferson Airplane fashion) from a down-tempo dirge and climaxes in an explosive, schizophrenic chorus. “Vikings” lands like a funeral procession on acid, with tribal drums and tremolo that swarms but never attacks (the song never builds to anything, but doesn’t need to). “Doves” may be the only song to break from this formula The jangly-pop sound and verse-chorus structure make it more at home on 2006’s Passover than this record. But the song, driven by Maas’s vocals, is too good to warrant any real complaint.

At times, however, the album’s approach falls flat. Several of the middle tracks have the same ingredients (groove, dissonance, drone, echo) but are somehow less than the sum of their parts. Songs like “Science Killer” and “18 Years” go nowhere and feel a little empty, especially alongside the frenzied experimentalism of “Never / Ever,” or a psychedelic anthem like “Mission District.” Sometimes it takes more than a good groove to make a good song.

That said, what Directions To See A Ghost loses in accessibility it gains back in authenticity. While Passover seemed a little forced at times, this album sounds effortless. The band is clearly more comfortable making songs like these than they were trying to cram their psychedelic vision into a pop-song format. In the end, the album’s highlights make it a must-own, but there is a sense that the Black Angels have yet to realize their full potential. The band may not have produced their “career defining” album this time around, but with Directions To See A Ghost, they are definitely getting warmer.

Mp3 from Directions to See a Ghost:
Doves

Websites:
http://theblackangels.com
Myspace