Sunday 14 April 2013

GIGATRON2000 - The Cosmic Desert Cruise - Album Review

The Cosmic Desert Cruise cover art

Gigatron 2000
The Cosmic Desert Cruise

Tartarus Records
8 February 2013

Songs:

Ancient Hyperdrive
Event Horizon Detector
Battlestations
Astral Highway
Monochromatique
Cosmic Desert Cruise
Ion Cannon
Hun-O-Matic
First Contact 
Positronic Accellarator
Background Radiation Shielding
Starcommand
19

The band:

Gerben - guitars 
Kevin - bass
Sarban - drums


The Cosmic Desert Cruise is an apt title for this Dutch instrumental trio's debut album. They claim they play, and I quote "hard rockin', groovin, instrumental heavy stoner rock", and for once an official statement like this is actually right. Riff-o-rama-fest is another spot-on description if you ask me.

Formed in Tilburg, Netherlands in 2012 they have moved quickly being signed by Tartarus Records who released their debut a year later, on January 8th 2013 to be precise. And these guys have done a good job. Since their focus is on heavy stoner-riffing the songs are kept short but oh so sweet y'all. If they had been any longer - range between 1:43-3:47 - it would have been boring, instead The Cosmic Desert Cruise is vibrant, trippy and very, very good!

Even though the album is instrumental it's easy to detect a collective fascination for space within the band. Already the title and cover gives it away and yes, even yours truly discovered it so you should too. But in case you missed that check out song titles like Ancient Hyperdrive, Astral Highway, First Contact, Positronic Accellarator and Starcommand and you get my point. This theme works very well within stoner rock especially when it's this good and spacey in all it's riffiness.

A thing the band does to keep their music interesting is, apart from playing real well of course, that they add electronic sounds here and there to give us listerners a feeling of being smack in the middle of an asteroid storm. And this too works great in their quest for space and intergalactic themes. This part is not overly done but added at the right time and to the right extent. Fantastic people!

I had never heard of Gigatron 2000 before The Cosmic Desert Cruise arrived in my mailbox. Couldn't be more happier though because I like nice surprises, so please more of that. If your preference is stoner rock of the shorter, heavier and riffier kind and/or you like bands like Karma To Burn, then give Gigatron 2000 a chance because they make a great cover of Karma To Burn's song 19. They 've got something going that can take them places. So press play and let them take you on a nice stoned out space trip.

Håkan Nyman

A great review by Håkan and one I fully recommend for fans of Karma To Burn. Awesome.

Check The Band From The Links Below: