Fakir Thongs
Habanero

In this otherwise scant year for new music releases, at least personally, 2018 has driven me wildly excited only with the return of Sleep; the same thing happened just days ago with the listening of Fakir Thongs' first full-length work.

Habanero is actually a work published in early 2015; but I discovered the band from Modena last Saturday when I met the bassist Alex who recently moved to Domodossola, precisely a few hundred meters from my home. Given our mutual love for certain sounds, it took us just a few minutes to connect; the bassist gifted me the two albums the band has composed. This is the written account of the first: a true and completely unexpected surprise.

Take the following doses of musical references to quantify the massive specific weight of the ten songs that form the sweltering auditory scaffolding of the album: a good 40% of desert-like Hard-Stoner heading effortlessly towards the direction of Kyuss; a 30% of distorted and ravenous Heavy-Fuzz reminiscent of the early works of the gigantic Monster Magnet; and yet another 30% of acid 70’s Psychedelia that floats in the air, projecting into the space-time dimension so dear to Hawkwind.

The telluric approach of these four acid-freakers looks back over the years, stopping in those "atomic" decades where super-distorted guitars were absolute protagonists. But it's not just noise and cranked distortion; they manage to lower the tones, entering a deep, hypnotic, and sublime dimension as happens in the seven minutes (indeed) of "Seven". Engaging and enveloping with an imposing bass that rises above the other instruments.

The opening "Storm" is a child of Josh Homme; with that guitar riff so saturated and explosive that it immediately puts the unsuspecting listener "on alert" as to the path the band has taken (and I can say that I myself went through it from the first listen). Ending the auditory trip, they place the instrumental "Domus de Jonas": a Progressive-Rock escape towards the absolute, towards space, towards infinity.

They don't invent anything, to be clear; but why search for innovation when you can aim with dusty determination towards sounds that will never, at least in my case, grow tiresome?

The answer is yours, debaseriani...RIFLE DOWN BLUES...

Ad Maiora.