GENTLE PATH HIGHWAY

Like many other major recordings of this band, the music on this album runs continuously from beginning to end without pauses. The long musical trip allows a receivable listener to play with one's personal associations upon quite abstract and trance-oriented tunes. Vibraphone resembling sounds open carefully the album with "Rider of The Woodlands", percussions, bass, vocals and subtle guitars joining this hypnotic mantra later. I admit I felt this ride slightly boring, during the sixteen minutes of time there didn't appear to happen anything interesting with the melodic theme or progression of intensity. Minimalisms and long durations of monotonic sonic presentations are not troubling for me, but the musical elements should find a way for pleasant level in some way. The title song "Gentle Path Highway" starts with a more aggressive rock punch, cosmic synth humming creating a psychedelic sound carpet, which is exploited more in the later ambient part of the song. I think this group succeeds really well in conjuration of such quiet and calm sound worlds. "Honja" starts with violin sounds seeking direction slowly, which is found from two-key blues progression, having again those vibraphone sounds, tribal-like slow drumming and chanting voices. Later the quietness changes to a powerful loud acid rock pattern running on the blues scale. This song sounds little Acid Mothers Temple's "La Novia" epic, though that is yet better in my opinion (being longer and having more interesting musical elements). The final track "Civilization Blues" hovers quietly in formless avant-garde cosmos occupied by soft psychedelic sounds, and this is actually the most pleasing track here for me. This record was a small disappointment from a band which I like quite much, but it's not really a bad record either. I prefer many of their earlier albums though much more.