CREATURE OF THE VELVET VOID

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Architectural Metaphor are true, modern day psychedelic trippers - I was fortunate enough to acquire an LP of this 'Creature of the Velvet Void', of which it is, and a strange creature at that. This USA band consists of 3 members ; Deb Young (lead vox, Drums/Perc. sundries) Paul Eggleston (synths, voice) and Greg Kozlowski (all manner of guitars - gliss, backwards, spatial, leslie, e-bow and a barrage of effects) and in their thanks list you can find the names Hawkwind, Nik Turner, Ozrics, Monster Magnet and Gong mentioned. Also, there is this line inside the gatefold 'When the everywhere eye asks you Who is the Emperor of the Sky ? Call the Archangels Thunderbird' - Mama Duul. Obviously, this album sports a Krautrock vibe, it can be quite stoner, at times the mix is a mess (intentionally, I hope), and it is quite dark. Highlights are 'Kairos' - a lengthy, electronic dominated piece with echoes of TANGERINE DREAM and during the rockier 2nd half, the classic Kraut sound of AMON DUUL II is there 100%. Not plagiarism, but passionately emulated. 'Holy Ground' is darker than dark - they've manipulated the vocals to produce this truly f***ed up result, something I've never heard before, and it works. 'March Of The Wooden Potatoes' is another nod to HAWKWIND/TANGERINE DREAM's electronic space-rock. On this album you will also find 2 cover-versions, 1 is Lou Reed's (Velvet Underground) 'All Tomorrow's Parties' and a 12 minute version of Hawkwind's 'Golden Void'. Admittedly, one has to be in the mood to enjoy this album - sometimes it repulses me, but most times it's rewarding. 3.5 stars.

This band mixes melodic hard rock riff approach to the post-psychedelic improvisations strenghtened with a lady singer and quite dark, unclear sounds. These sounds do not please me much, and to be honest, the first impression of the album was a question are the instuments in same tune. I'm not usually very allergig to bad sounds (or tunes, tonedeaf...), but somehow this record sounds quite unbalanced and not very pleasing. Some moments offer quite nice improvisations, but they are accompanied also with unconvinging fade outs and slightly uncertain sounding performing.

"Kairos" and "March of Wooden Potatoes" have quite good sounding sonic landscapes, and resemble both "Richocet"-era Tangerine Dream and 1990's Hawkwind. Other association from the costructed songs and bolder psychedelic solutions is more stoned and less guitar-emphasizing version of Kingston Wall. "Holographic Caves" has also interesting stonlgy echo-treated approach. I prefer to hear these elements, but the composed melodic tunes like the opener and "All Tomorrow's Parties" are not very fun to listen. Also some experimental tunes like "Holy Ground" do not create a desire to listen them again. This being just my personal opinion ofcourse.

The album ends to a Hawkwind cover, which doesn't in my opinion bring much extra value to the record or to the original song, but certainly is a homage to an innovator. The improvisation following the composed part is very fine. So personally, I think I would enjoy this band more if they would focus more to creating improvisations and electronic soundrealms and do some little more qualitry control in the recordings. But most important is ofcourse that band follows the path the choose themselves. Great promise in the stuff, have to check out if the other records of the group are better.

I can't help myself (therefore I'm helpless), but this hangs in my mind on 2-3 star scale. First track's first minute was perfect love at first sight, but on a first though (I mean second) it became first pain in a long string of good/bad things about this album.

Whew, "Kairos", the second track is for example, third one also, but there is something I cannot describe, which is bad. This is maybe third time I've seen this in prog music and was not able to describe it, which annoys me quite a lot. Words are important for telling your opinion, so I'll try to find out what it is.

Maybe it's a fact that these tracks, this music don't flow easily. Psychedelic rock should be about relaxing, well, tripping. But this sounds like it's fully loaded truck which bumps on every hole on a road.

However, despite heavy sounds, which are not as pleasant as I would expect, there are light moments of relatively good music. And also ideas. And by that I mean a lot of ideas. It's whole bunch of unrealised quality. But from accepting it, you are blocked by weird sounding instruments. Woman vocals are great, she has hypnotic voice, which I suppose is ideal.

Well, three stars, it's probably good record and I didn't get it at all, but there's something bad about it. Balanced 3 stars by the way.