The Black Angels may have been at it for over a decade now, but there’s no let-up in their levels of volume or intensity. If anything, Death Song (their first album in four years and one whose title neatly appends their name to the VU classic that first inspired them) is their heaviest to date, a toxic draught of garage-rock and booming psychedelia that buzzes with echo and reverb.
In keeping with their brief status as Roky Erickson’s live backing band, there are nods to the 13th Floor Elevators on the throbbing Death March, albeit with a very modern sense of sophistication. They truly excel on I’d Kill For Her and Comanche Moon, both of which reach for the void through thickets of stroppy riffs that refuse to let go.
Meanwhile, mini-epic Life Song is a cosmic comedown in the lineage of early Floyd, full of trippy synths and pan-dimensional musings.
