Brainticket
Psychonaut

How good are kraut, it's a shame I discovered them not long ago both the ones to listen to and the ones to eat. Go figure why they serve them with sausages which don't fit together at all. Oh well, they're good on their own too. If you're looking for a kraut group with counter-sausages that can satisfy your psycho-teutonic appetite, the answer is Brainticket from Belgium (even though they all hail from other nations). You know how to get them, because it's well known that few sales imply little notoriety (slash) availability. If you don't have a sufficiently kraut shop within reach, meaning one that doesn't limit itself to the much better-known Ash, Tangerine, Faust, etc... then there's only one alternative, inescapable.

Aside from these premises, the album "Psychonaut" presents an evident analogy with the previous "Cottonwoodhill", not so much for musical continuity, quite the opposite. Here we have less acid and lysergic soundscapes, a stretching of rhythms in favor of greater melodic exploration, even if constantly within the aura of hallucinogenic disturbances... A sound that we could define as more sabbathianly funereal, thanks especially to the dark and macabre grooves on the organ and the solo runs of the flute, an alchemy that creates an even more surreal dimension...

It's precisely the atmosphere that you might call mescaline-like, dreamlike, that evolves from the infernal concept of the first album. From the sado-demonic perversions of the old suite "Brainticket" it moves here to the angelic redemption of "Radagacuca", perfect prog: initial eudaimonia, slow and sinuous progress of tribal atmospheres and when the voice enters, it's the apotheosis of a very sixties romanticism. An apparent redemption though. The final acid rain catapults us back into the depths of hell...: Ra-da-ga-cu-cà! If then "Watching you" has the most obvious Floyd-influence and a title, obviously of Orwellian origin as the lyrics confirm: "watching everything you do...how is true?"; "One Morning" is another journey into the eden of hallucinogens, and the piano progressions are enough to totally detach the senses from reality. Not enough? Vandroogenbroeck and company will still scramble your neurons. "Lake a place in the sun", here mescaline plays nasty tricks. A dizzying excursion between oppressive nightmare and idyllic dream... when balance seems to prevail, here we sink back into the claustrophobic abyss. One watches, one agonizes, the escape routes are exhausted. At the end of the record, with distorted brains, awaiting the coup de grâce, the unexpected panacea arrives: "Coc'o Mary" melds so much experimental rock between Booker T, Zeppelin, and especially the cousin Faust (those of Faust 1) and, finally putting aside the psychedelic storm, it indulges in rapid instrumental dialogues that gradually sweep away every neurotic vision. No pauses, no boredom; a musical overdose and not a nervous one that, fortunately for those listening, does not arrive.

A separate note on the album concerns the absence of Dawn Meir's voice... what a woman, unbelievably alluring, a vocal timbre here perhaps not quite fitting...

Too forward, even now... 5 stars without objections, or do you have any?