11Paranoias tend to make most other aspiring psych rock bands sound as trippy as shopping for wallpaper on a wet bank holiday.
Formed five years ago after bassist Adam Richardson’s previous band, Ramesses, went on hiatus, Bong guitarist Mike Vest and former Capricorns drummer Nathan Perrier completed a trio that eventually conjured up their first full album, the warped and largely improvised doom trip Stealing Fire From Heaven.
With the trio employing similar improvisational tactics during the recording of its follow-up, you might expect similar results. Reliquary…, however, takes the basic formula explored on its predecessor – the diving, phased guitars, the smoked-out, hazy doom meanders and ritualistic intensity – and harnesses it to an asteroid made of bad acid, hurtling straight into another dimension. Sounding more confident and sonically imposing than its predecessor, the infinite, Loop-like riffing of Destroying Eyes, and the morose and hazy Phantom Pyramid, both backed by guitars that sound like a dying wale being swallowed by a black hole, are supreme highs indeed.
