Kimono Drag Queens, Songs of Worship review (Copper Feast Records 2020)

November 7, 2020 Wayne EdwardsAustralia, Copper Feast Records, Desert Music, Groove, Kimono Drag Queens, Psychedelic Rock, Songs Of Worship

The debut album from Kimono Drag Queens establishes a principle of sound that lends a lesson easy to take in.

This Australian psychedelic band is comprised of Harry Webber (vocals and guitar), Kellie Banyai (vocals and keys), Will Coleman (vocals and guitar), Zeppelin Hamilton (guitar), Amy Yoshiko (percussion), Billy Minett (drums), and William Wood (bass). It is almost a troop instead of a band. If it takes this many musicians then that’s how many it takes – it is the results that matter and here they’re hitting all the right spots.

The music does remind me a little of King Gizzard but with more 60s in there, a little more on the folky side amidst the smoke and desert groove. Also more melody, and a greater intention toward the aural consumability of the final creation. So, maybe not so much like King Gizzard after all.

“Songs of Worship” is a beautiful meditation in a seemingly barren place that is actually full of life. Gentle musicianship and hypnotic vocals are the Pied Piper’s song for the first half leading you into a deeper groove of psychedelic jam. “Hunters In The Snow” goes the other way around having a pulsing rhythm up front with a whispering spell behind it. “Delilah” brings super fuzzy guitars out and “Wild Animals” hones the echo into contemporary art as the spirit of the trance really starts to kick in.

And then there is “Evil Desires” which I heard as a warning about walking too far away from camp late at night. The dual guitar right at the end is as memorable as it is brief. The set closes on “Willy’s World.” This song creates a pleasant warble in your cortex and a lasting gentle throb deeper down, where meaning swims in the ink of delusion. I am going to be hearing this album again, over and over. Recommended.

The digital is out now with vinyl to follow soon. You can scoop it all up at Bandcamp or through the label’s Big Cartel digital storefront.

Links.

Band Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/kimonodragqueens

Album Bandcamp, https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-worship

Label Bandcamp, https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com

Label Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/copperfeastrecords

Label shop, https://copperfeastrecords.bigcartel.com

Foot, The Balance of Nature Shifted review (Copper Feast Records 2020)

July 27, 2020 Wayne EdwardsAustralian Metal, Copper Feast Records, Desert Metal, Desert Music, Foot

Foot conjures a tsunami of sound with The Balance of Nature Shifted.

The Melbourne band Foot released its first EP (self-titled) in 2016, and its first full-length, Buffalo, in 2018. Sticking to the two-year cycle, more of their unique brand of introspective desert music has solidified from the mirage that is 2020. The main creative engine in Foot is Paul Holden, who writes the music and sings and plays guitar on the albums. On the band’s Facebook and Bandcamp pages, Holden has commented on this new collection of songs at some length, suggesting that their composition was influenced by the astonishing flux we all find ourselves in right now. It is not just the new catastrophes we have to deal with, but ones that have been building. Check the title of the album and interpret it in the broadest possible terms.

The music is a heavy desert sound, stonerish and reminiscent of grunge in many ways (although there might be more motivation today for the despondency that permeates the music than there was in the grunge era). The first song, “Despair On Hope Street,” starts off with a faraway tinny cracking for a few seconds before the avalanche of guitars lands directly on your head. It sounds like 20 guitars, that rumbling riff does. Heavy fuzz, and lingering vocals combined toward the end with a Tim Sult-style directness in the lead work puts you right in the middle of the situation Foot is going to deal with over the course of the album. The deep, cooking desert vibe emerges slowly over the next few songs and a straight-up doom hammer is there too from time to time (e.g, “Green Embers”). This album coalesced for me as an ethereal enterprise that sounded great the first time through and even better the more I listened to it. Foot is absolutely on my radar from now on. It would be great to see them at the next Psycho Las Vegas – they would fit right in. Recommended.

Streaming and digital downloads are available now at Bandcamp and the usual elsewheres. The physicals are out this Friday, July 31, from Copper Feast Records (links below). Foot will get you rolling, and that is a fact.

Links.

https://footmelb.bandcamp.com

https://www.facebook.com/footmelbourne

https://copperfeastrecords.bandcamp.com

https://copperfeastrecords.bigcartel.com

https://www.facebook.com/CopperFeastRecords