First impressions count, and German space rockers Vibravoid certainly grab your attention with this album’s extraordinary opening track. Thirteen minutes of explosive, cosmic cacophony, Gravitation Zero sounds like the finest moments of the Hawkwind and Amon Duul II back catalogues, as re-imagined by esoteric doom druids OM and remixed by sentient robots wearing Loop T-shirts and bellbottom jeans.
You may feel obliged to provide your own mind-bending, smokeable accompaniment, but such is the bewildering density of the song’s dubby groove and wah-wah haze that even the soberest of us will struggle to stay on mental terra firma.
There are a few comparable moments later on, too, but disappointingly Vibravoid frequently draw back from outright weirdness and into a far more pedestrian world of primitive chord sequences and restrained fuzz. The result is a handful of songs that owe more to The Jesus And Mary Chain at their least adventurous or, even worse, those po-faced revisionists Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
To be transported so far out then brought crashing to earth is infuriating. In all it’s a bit of a missed opportunity.
