Having covered Hawkwind and Dozer as my last couple of reviews, it’s a short hop on to the space doom bus to cover Mancunian trio Astral Bodies with their debut full length, ‘Escape Death’. Despite catching a lot of bands on the local circuit, they have somehow passed me by so far, so this will prove how much harder I need to keep on looking. A mix of post-metal, space rock and doom-pop awaits my ears on another voyage into the nether.
They err a lot more towards the post-metal side of things through the majority of the release, with the likes of second track ‘Europa’ and mid-album track ‘Equinox’ being very much symptomatic of the overall feel. A lot of the tracks run at a mid-tempo pace, though some rather ear-catching switches during tracks and some excellent and unexpected fills by drummer L.Staszko in a manner not dissimilar from Bill Ward’s early Black Sabbath input mean it’s hard to lose interest at any point as your ears are constantly grabbed by something else. If this was not enough, we even get some saxophone in closing track ‘Mythic Phantoms’ which is mixed well into the rest of the parts to become an additional layer without ever being overpowering.
While the majority of the album is instrumental, penultimate track ‘Pale Horse’ provides us with some distorted vocals which sit very well alongside what is comfortably the most laidback track on the album, something which would sit well alongside the likes of Hawkwind’s ‘Carry On Sundown’ in feel and puts you in mind of a warmer, happier place than the cosmic wave distortion that pervades the majority of the release.
The only slight concern I had over this was the fairly mid-tempo pace that is symptomatic of the album, though as mentioned above, this concern alleviated quickly with the sheer technical ability of the trio themselves and the productions values which have layered everything perfectly so that each has more than adequate time to showcase their obvious abilities both singularly and as a unit. The overall feel of the album is one of a trip through the darker recesses of the cosmos and the wide-eyed interest of a first-time voyager doing so. When you bear in mind this is a debut full-length release, it speaks volumes of this trio and what they could go on to become as they fully develop their sound together, though it’s clear they already have more than just the foundations already in place to establish themselves.
‘Escape Death’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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