Any of you Bostonians know?
Another very good Yo La Tengo/Spiritualized/Mogwai/Verve psychedelic droning guitar pop type band that I loved based on their debut
Sleeping On The Elephant Fog. It's a little hard to find but worth the effort. Lots of promise, and much of it realized. So fast forward about 3 years to the present and Google says.....
Lockgroove announces that their long-awaited new record, Calm Right Down, is finally complete and ready for mass consumption. This, their 2nd full-length, expands tremendously upon the "space rock" formulae their debut "Sleeping on the Elephant Fog" put in place. Gone are the 20+ minute noise jams - replaced instead by far more concise and potent blasts of sound combined with beautifully crafted pop. The band underwent a metamorphasis of sorts during the 3+ years spent writing, recording, doubting, slacking, and generally hammering away at their vision of this album. Calm Right Down is the result of countless hours of work at Dented Head Studios, the home base of the SharkAttack! Music label collective. Additionally, Calm Right Down is an album for the first time entirely written, engineered, and produced by Lockgroove, and features guest appearances from a number of Boston's finest musicians.
LOCKGROOVE burst onto the Boston music scene with their outstanding debut EP "Rewired." Lockgroove floored everyone in their path, shattering eardrums and blowing minds in the process. Not content with the humdrum club scene in Boston, lockgroove teamed up with local musicians and video artists for a series of eclectic "happenings" dubbed "Deep Heaven." Soon bands from across the country and around the world such as Acid Mothers Temple, Bardo Pond, Brother JT, Lightning Bolt, and Kool Kieth were taking part in these Warholian multi-media gatherings. Lockgroove's critically acclaimed first ep, "Rewired," was recorded in 48 frantic hours and is a testament to the band's manic and unpredictable live shows. Before "Rewired" was even released, identical twin brothers Martin and Ryan Rex were already sequestered in their run-down-rat-infested basement with an 8 track machine recording demos for what would become their amazing debut full-length album(at 70 minutes we mean full-length) - "Sleeping on the Elephant Fog." The album's 12 seamlessly-intertwined songs channel everything from the psychedelia of Syd Barrett and Sonic Boom to the linear experimentation of Can and Eno to the raw power of the MC5 and The Velvet Underground, and present a unified musical experience.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Start with the reverb minimalism of Galaxie 500, add the guitar squall of Spacemen 3 and the under-the-influence psychedelic flourishes of Barrett-era Pink Floyd. But wait, that's not all! Include doses of Mogwai's loud-soft guitar loopiness, Rain Parade's droning electric folk, and Yo La Tengo's hushed melodic tenderness. With all these reference points, it's hard to state that Boston band Lockgroove manage to find an original path out of this influential forest, but somehow they manage to evoke without plagiarism to astounding result. Rumor has it that Martin and Ryan Rex--the identical twin brothers who front Lockgroove--share some kind of freaky musical telepathy, and the hard-wired intensity of Sleeping on the Elephant Fog's alchemy doesn't belie that notion. Indeed, if they fulfill the enormous promise of their first full-length, they may shift psychedelia's epicenter--previously located in California and Britain--to New England. --Tod Nelson
EDIT: Wow, just read the review of the new one at
AMG and they love it. Gotta get it.
