I finally saw Blown Out live earlier this year. Fuck they were heavy. The bass was so deep that not only was it slamming tsunamis of air against my chest, but causing drinks on the shelf around the venue to throw themselves onto the ground in a lemming-like frenzy as if trying escape what must have seemed like certain death by vibration.
After that experience, and a number of albums of pulsating heavy psych later I was expecting, as the unattributed quote on the Blown Out bandcamp page says: ‘This is what ‘psychedelic’ music is all about….not flowers and sugarcubes and paeans to long lost pastoral idylls, but music that can transport you’. As that is precisely what ‘New Cruiser’ does, and arguably more than it’s predecessors.
The first Blown Out album I heard was ‘Jet Black Hallucinations‘. I was totally unprepared for the onslaught and it totally blew me away. However, as I began to listen more I realised that after that initial hit comes something else, a psychedelic experience that just takes you somewhere else. That’s why ‘New Cruiser’ is so aptly titled, because from the cover and the first bars break over your head you get engulfed into another trip, new ship/ familiar controls, this time taking you just that bit further into the heart of the cosmos.
What this isn’t is some utopian space journey past beautiful nebulae and swirling star systems. This is a journey onboard a well-travelled freighter bound for a distant galaxy, not some casual bucolic trip around the universe. This is a hard, uncompromising and cathartic journey that you come out of feeling somehow cleansed…perhaps sandblasted would be a better analogy.
So if you’re reading this chances are that you know what Blown Out are all about. You get all that I’ve said above and maybe you’re wondering why you should invest in another trip aboard this type of vessel. Well, all I can say is that while all the same ingredients are there, there is a sense that this is an upgraded experience which is at the same time familiar but feels like it has more depth to it.
Get aboard the ‘New Cruiser’…you won’t regret it.
-o0o-
‘New Cruiser’ is available from the Blown Out and Riot Season bandcamps.
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