By: Martyn Coppack
11PARANOIAS | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on October 28, 2016 via Ritual Productions
There seems to be no stopping Mike Vest these days as he flits from one project to another creating a body of work which may well come to be recognised as essential in the history of space rock. Here he returns with 11PARANOIAS, along with Adam Richardson (bass/vocals) and Nathan Perrier (drums) for fourth album, Reliquary For A Dreamed Of World, and may just have made his best work yet.
Having garnered much critical acclaim for last album, Stealing Fire From Heaven, the crushing psychedelic doom of that album is revisited here, but with a much more intense purpose. Gone are the more basic doom embellishments and in its place is a more tripped out feel, which develops over the course of the album into a stunningly intense listen.
Not that you would know this from the red herring opener of ‘Peripheral Metamorphosis’, which sounds just like any number of doom tracks. Almost throwaway, it offers no hints at what is to follow. Fear not though as the fifteen minute follow up, ‘Destroying Eyes’, will leave you under no illusion that this album is here to deliver the goods. A sprawling beast of a track, it rests on two recognisable parts where the first half builds up the ante until a full on throttling riff blasts you off into space halfway through. It really is one of those moments where you feel you have just been delivered one hell of a kick up the ass.
‘Avallanius’ may start like some deep tribal doom, but it soon builds up into a cathartic explosion of riffs. This doomy feel where the music simply sinks down to the level of the bass is a ploy used throughout the album with particularly great effect on ‘Mutus Liber’, which pulls you in with its hypnotic throb before unleashing all sense of hell on you. It’s music which is involved in breaking down those lines of sanity in your mind and rewiring into some sort of tripped out dimension. That you come out of it feeling better is testament to the true power of the band who have just taken you on an unforgettable journey.
The same trick of starting low and heading for space is repeated on ‘Meditation On The Void’, which has the added bonus of some rather bouncy effects giving it a weird acid vibe although it’s probably not recommended that you do try and trip to this album as you may find yourself in some very disturbing places. They may soothe you a tad with the more accessible ‘Phantom Pyramid’ yet by the time ‘Milk Of Amnesia’ comes around they have turned the throttle back up to 11 (Paranoias?) and are intent on leaving you with a scarred mind which may or may not recover after a lie down.
With its excursions into the world of bass, this album has an almost sprawling feel to it. It’s a disconcerting feeling, but by the end you know you have been privy to something quite exceptional. It’s not going to see them cross over, and if anything they have never sounded so intense and underground. It does set the bar remarkably high for any pretenders who may try to follow though and when all is said and done we may just have a classic of the genre. It’s early days for such merits though and we can simply rely on the fact that with Reliquary For A Dreamed Of World, 11PARANOIAS have delivered a fevered nightmare of an album. An at time stunning piece of work, which deserves all the accolades it gets.
