We live in a culture of throw backs. A time of retro-chic where anything that’s current seems to be ‘passe’.  Now I know this can be all confusing, however I’ll try my best to walk you through this. At some point, lets say in the early y2k era, bands/designs/cool bros said to them selves, “dudes, I think thats it for music/clothes/our lives, what do we do!” to which some one said, “Lets start playing music like our parents/grandparents!” Thus came the culture of musical, fashionable, and cultural throwback. Although it may not have went down exactly like that, and I’m sure its been around much longer than 10 years I’ve yet to find an era of music so hell bent on not sounding like themselves. Now don’t get me wrong, I love this shit. There are a ton of bands our there who are able to capture something our generation may have never heard before, tinny guitars, muffled drums and distant vocals. Mostly this comes down to shitty recordings and your usual 4 chordal progressions. This approach to music has exploded in the last few years with more and more bands with older and older sounds becoming extremely popular. Now that you know how it happened, lets wade through the shit and talk about a band combining that old psych sound with some wicked modern sensibilities.  I have a theory, if you took a Black Angels song and played it for a ‘Nam veteran they either would claim they heard it in the jungle, or claim they where bunk mates with the drummer/singer/whoever. The music of The Black Angels stirs up something in you that seems to have been repressed, probably by your genetics, age and location but some how its still in there. If a twenty something guy from the north-west-pacific can relate can relate to dusty retro-based shoegaze drone, than I hope anyone can. The sound is altogether southern american, as the Black Angels are from Austin Texas, however in a non-nationalistic way, I guess I’ll call it North American. The lyrical content deals with topics these men/woman could never have dealt with in their lifetimes such as the horrors of the Vietnam war, being on the run from the law and yet they seem to describe these events perfectly in song… “We got off that boat, Charlies everywhere, lots of killing and dying, and no one seems to care…” The music defiantly has that old Velvet Underground drone and noise aspects, but The Black Angels where able to cut through most of the bullshit sticking to a formula that works flawlessly for them, and me. With 3 albums under their belt and a current world tour with Wolfmother (huh that band even still exists?) I think its time this band really blew the fuck up.  Now enough babbling from the fan boy that is myself, lets here some Black Angels shall we?

The Black Angels – 18 Years

The Black Angels – Bloodhounds On My Trail

-lionsteeth

Tags: blackangels, lionsteeth