There have been so many half-arsed attempts to evoke the freewheeling spirit of late 60s hard rock over the years that Landskap deserve to be applauded for not flinching from the task in hand.
II wears its influences lightly; the scenery-chewing spectre of Jim Morrison is in the building, but whether by channeling the organ-powered bombast of Heep and Purple or sashaying into the om-rock miasma of Saucerful Of Secrets-era Floyd, these songs never sound like simple-minded pastiche.
An oomph derived from doom metal of the purely Sabbathian variety adds enough muscularity to make this an easy fit in underground metal and stoner rock circles, but it’s equally true that songs like the hazy blues groove of South Of No North shares more than a little atmospheric DNA with Miles’ Bitches Brew, albeit filtered through The Doors at their most musically free.
With fuzzy, dark brown guitar tones, drums that actually sound like drums and the omnipresent, reassuring ripple of a vintage Hammond, Landskap clearly pine for the pre-digital age, but their music makes a valuable and heartening point about the ageless allure of psychedelic rock.
