Residual Echoes
Phoenician Flu And Ancient Ocean

In this glimpse of the new millennium, Santa Cruz has assertively emerged as a pivotal place in the new American psychedelic scene (one might say worldwide, but let's not rush).

This scene is characterized by reciprocal collaborations among members of various bands, all somewhat converging into the ultra-sonic 'Comets On Fire'. These Residual Echoes, a project by Adam Payne of the aforementioned Comets, assisted by Ben Chasny of 'Six Organs Of Admittance' and other unidentified figures, are no exception.
Already in their previous self-titled album, the 'Residual Echoes' sought (successfully) to exacerbate the raw and gritty sound of 'Comets On Fire', steering it towards an increasingly unstructured form of tracks, bordering on total improvisation. In this new work, with a rather grandiose title, they seem to strive for a middle ground between free-form psychedelic drifts, nods to the more sonic krautrock (think Guru Guru, Ashra Tempel, and Cosmic Jokers) and skewed folk interludes.

Certainly, the sound has become more accessible, but sharpness and assorted noise abound somewhat ubiquitously throughout the album. The album opens with the instrumental "Death Comes For The Archbishops", a heavy psychedelic ride that proceeds through tidal waves of guitar riffs alternating with moments of tribal calm, eventually wrecking into the subsequent "Lorelei", an epic and unsettled ballad based on delay and dizzying vocals. There's even space for an ambient reinterpretation of Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" ("Knowe Part I") and a remarkable industrial sludge monolith like the obsessive and unpronounceable "{G}-x-nou(gh) Part II". It's a pity that the band imitates itself in tracks like "Motametrik Canopy Entry", 9-odd minutes of space boogie similar if not identical to the first track.

Even though the dizzying effect of the final "Blue Eyes" with its apocalyptic doom tones succeeds well in its aim of desynchronizing your brain, the impression of a half-good work remains, which gets a bit too lost in instrumental lengths too close to the edge between avant-garde and boredom.