Sublime monsters, idle, learned, sick of ancient gold, their ships akin to ancient caravans, taking their treasures to Kazhann. Their museums are their temples. Their parks, the entire planet.
Philippe Druillet – Chaos
Superior Venus consists of two monumental planet building tracks that take you into the beyond. Blown Out have been honing their music up into cosmic levels where it defies gravity and creates its own new worlds somewhere on the outer rim. Each track lasts just over fifteen minutes and is a trip into out there.
“Impious Oppressor” wastes no time in kicking into its jam. A bass drum hits in and then there is the take off of the rolling bass and echoed lead guitar, spacious and tumbling like ice falling from a Saturn Five rocket. The relentless spaced-out sound reminds me of fellow cosmic travellers Electric Moon and Acid Mothers Temple.
It’s the noise of engines struggling to remain in orbit around some distant world while space debris hits part of the craft in a relentless battery. Caught within the arc of light forming a halo around Titan, it reveals the universe to be endless. Slowly, the music changes gear and a riff takes over from the soloing, adding a heavy drug on to the litmus paper cocktail of sounds. Again, a sense of urgency moves the track forward like you need to hit hyperdrive and it’s just not working. Track two is “Superior Venus”, which starts with a solid bass throb over which echoed guitar plays a melancholy desert lead; soon the drums pick up a steady pace and you’re in for a fifteen-minute trip to your nearest galactic portal. The track acts like taking an acid trip while stars are born and die in front of your very eyes. You drift upon the solar wind, undulating upon its waves until you hit the void of blackness away from our solar system. Mike Vest’s guitar still drags you outward, while Matt Baty and John-Michael Headly’s rhythm section give you the invisible stream of consciousness that you travel on. At time the sound is reminiscent of late sixties Pink Floyd in the way it basks in its own reverb.This is a wonderful slice of space rock. It’s out there, it’s psychedelic, it’s the universe travelling through your ears; it’s a freak out at the end of time.
-Gary Parsons-
