WAKE TO A NEW DAWN OF ANOTHER ASTRO ERA

Acid Mothers Temple is a universe apart, obeying its own set of physical laws similar to but entirely different than the rules governing our own mundane cosmos. It would require a truly dedicated explorer to pierce the mystery of AMT and fully understand the band: the shifting incarnations, with different sets of musicians and alternating group names, make it hard for a newcomer to gain a stable foothold.

But this much is obvious: their latest-to-date adventure is the freakout jam album of 2016. To squares like me, for whom music is the only reliable narcotic, it could almost be a gateway drug to a higher dimension, where the fabric of space-time itself is webbed by killer grooves, paranormal guitars, and otherworldly ambient chillouts.

'Freakout' might be the wrong word however, because the album isn't random at all. Replays emphasize the calculation behind the apparent anarchy, and the macro-scale structure of the band's juggernaut sonic attack. There's freedom here to be sure, but it isn't freeform: one minute the music is adrift in a beatific void; the next it's being scrambled in a loud, one-chord motorik blender, insanely strung out (in both duration and mindset) but interrupted by unexpected moments of pinpoint unison playing.

A lazy comparison can be made to Ozric Tentacles and other Space Rockers, but the music of Acid Mothers Temple begins at that point of apogee where the Ozrics typically run out of fuel. The album's opening riff is distinctly Japanese in character, appropriate to the group's country of origin. But with tracks titles like "Nebulous Hyper Meditation", and instrument credits ("...at the time of this recording") that include 'Speed Guru', 'Space & Time', and 'Another Dimension', it's clear we've left the Earth far behind.

It all leads toward a dreamy acoustic guitar epilogue, and a several-minutes-long electronic hum sounding like an audio snapshot of the residual cosmic microwave background from the Big Bang. Four stars from a transported newbie, with a possible fifth star refracted in the much larger AMT omniverse.