Orange Goblin
Time Travelling Blues

THE REVIEW

Beer, roughness, nights of revelry. They don't come from the USA but from "cold" England. Their music is stoner rock or stoner metal, call it what you like: the important thing is to know that their music opens the minds.

We are in London in 1995 when a band called "Our Haunted Kingdom" was born, which would later transform into Orange Goblin. They emerged during the period when the stoner genre was at its peak thanks to the American bands Kyuss, Sleep, and Monster Magnet. A genre that quickly developed in Europe and saw the birth of some very interesting bands (but not able to rival the stars and stripes). Orange Goblin, Spiritual Beggars, and Dozer contributed to expanding the range of stoner in Europe, and particularly, the Orange Goblin are considered the only ones who can contend with the American "masters."

Led by the rough singer Ben Ward, the six (at the time) "orange goblins" debuted in 1997 with the excellent "Frequencies from planet ten." A year later, here they are again with another album full of interplanetary journeys, hallucinogenic visions and tons of sand. "Time travelling blues" carves a respectable place in the Orange discography and is rightly defined as one of their most successful albums. Songs like "Blue snow," "Solarisphere," "Shine," and "Lunarville 7, Airlock 3" are there to demonstrate the relentlessly uncompromising energy of the London band.

In their albums, we don't find the thematic and philosophical musings of post/psychedelic/symphonic metal bands and various amenities: their albums are anthems to the filthiest rock, the kind whose sole purpose is to provoke headbanging and adrenaline. The instruments speak, the sand whistles. Splashes of psychedelia and hard rock then contribute to giving us a record that is not only roughness but also variety. For these reasons, "Time travelling blues" is one of the best-achieved stoner albums of the second "wave" of this genre and most embodies the stylistic canons of this way of making music.

Smell of armpits, beer, and burps.

Four and a half stars.

1. "Blue Snow" (4:23)
2. "Solarisphere" (6:09)
3. "Shine" (6:56)
4. "The Man Who Invented Time" (3:48)
5. "Diesel (Phunt)" (2:47)
6. "Snail Hook" (5:48)
7. "Nuclear Guru" (6:15)
8. "Lunarville 7, Airlock 3" (4:31)
9. "Time Travelling Blues" (6:40)
10. "Sober Up (Hidden Track)" (6:43)