Tuesday 14 October 2014

Somali Yacht Club - The Sun (Album Review)


Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 16/9/2014
Label: Robustfellow / Transubstans Records

‘The Sun’ CD/DD/LP track Listing

1). The Loom (08:20)
2). Sightwaster (08:02)
3). Up In The Sky (08:12)
4). Signals (10:52)
5). Sun (7:19)

Bio:

Somali Yacht Club is a stoner rock trio from Lviv, Ukraine. The band mixes elements of stoner rock, psychedelic rock, shoegazing and post-metal in their music.

Formed in 2010 as a jam band, they evolved quickly to a main band for its members. In August 2011 they self-released their first four-song EP “Sandsongs”.

In late 2014 Somali Yacht Club are releasing first LP ‘The Sun’ on Bilocation Records. They played numerous shows in Ukraine and shared the stage with Red Fand, The Machine, Stoned Jesus, Belzebong, Bong and many others.

The Band:

Mez | Guitar, vocals
Artur | bass
Lesyk | drums

Review:

Somali Yacht Club definitely were able to make an interesting genre mash-up with their newest full length, ‘The Sun’. Until this point all they had out there was their debut EP, ‘Sandsongs’ from 2011 and a single they put out last year. As a fan of both those releases, this newest one was certainly a surprise. While their earlier albums were very riff laden, fuzzed out, to the point stoner metal, ‘The Sun’ is a much more abstract piece of work. The goal of this clearly is different from their earlier releases- it’s about half as heavy, half the speed, but with twice the amount of thought put into how the album would work as a whole.

After listening to the first track, I thought I had about settled into the album. It seemed like one of those openers that would define the whole album. That nice, atmospheric opening track prepares the listener for a contemplative, almost relaxing experience. The main riff is catchy, but not too in your face. There is a lot of background noise throughout the whole song, a lot of effects, and those great trippy vocals chanting “I can feel it in my bones” over and over.

The fact that Somali Yacht Club started as a jam band becomes very evident by the second and third tracks. This is where they start to go all over- you can tell that a lot of this was written just during a straight up jam session- riffs that came right from the heart without an excessive amount of thought put into them, and even some dub sections. However, it also avoids being incohesive as a lot of jam bands can be- it is still a very well arranged album that flows throughout.

They definitely took a risk with this album- there are so many points in the album that they could have easily just taken the easy route (which they may have done on their first EP) and just gone from one to another, keeping the same attitude the whole song, but ‘The Sun’ has a multitude of attitudes and emotions going on.  ‘The Sun' manages to find the perfect middle ground of psychedelic rock. Just the right amount of riffs, right amount of abstract atmospheric jamming, the vocals are relaxing, but intense and emotional at the same time. There is so much emotion on this album that I feel like you could listen to it in any mood and relate to it. They manage to be all over the place, but still not sound frantic and unorganized.

All-in-all, a great, well put together album. Go spend the 5 bucks and get it on Bandcamp.

Words by: Alex D.

You can pick up a copy here and here



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