Manitoba Music
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Music releases
Time Dilation
By AstroCoven
- Released
- Wednesday, July 11, 2012
- Independent
Three epic songs that total 32 minutes.
Review by Hellride Music:
“One hell of a ride” – AstroCoven.
Time Dilation is so bad ass. I feel like I just sat through a very stoned variation on a theme re-interpreting ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. All attention to its inherent epic qualities and musical intricacies were allowed to remain intact, but it’s soul had to be torn out, reconstructed, and reconstituted. They started with the vocals… instead of Bruce Dickinson, AstroCoven opted for less-obvious... I mean REALLY less obvious... choices closer to Dixie Dave, King Buzzo and Henry Rollins. Next, they took ‘Arry’s prominent bass and swamped the galloping-thing for Mike Watt-like bassthetics (bass player Ryan McPherson is awesome!). Next, they approached the guitar parts sort of like Virginia’s ‘Adventure Rock’ kings Corsair… unconstrained by boundaries, not too obnoxiously heavy and … well… adventurous. And, in Jungian terms, it’s quite synchronistic that both bands feature female guitar players. Then they stretched it out to 32 minutes of riffs, jams, crazy tales/vignettes and sub-themes. ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ on heavy entheogens.
AstroCoven eludes a musical genre label, which is a good thing. The name “AstroCoven” immediately makes you think ‘Stoner/Doom’ (STOOM) and they do make references to Kyuss in their bio… but they also mention The Melvins which may be a little bit closer to home, but AstroCoven is a little too intricate, intellectual and nuanced (in other words, 'Slough-Fegian') for that… I dunno, I’m stumped.
If pushed, I’d categorize them nearer toward Corsair’s ‘Adventure Rock’ tag. It’s heavy, it’s dark but it’s also brilliantly structured with shitloads of imagination. Entheogen Rock? That might work. I can see some chemognosis happening with Time Dilation playing in the background. Check them out, different, very cool, worth your ear time.
By Chris Barnes
October 11, 2012