THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE

4.5 stars. I'm a big fan of Dave Schmidt or if you wish Sula Bassana and this German's many musical outlets. This is my favourite of those outlets ELECTRIC MOON. Basically a trio of bass, guitar and drums with Schmidt adding guitar, synths, vocals and effects. Dave also recorded, produced and mixed this recording. I have to mention Komet Lulu who also plays with Schmidt in ZONE SIX, well she's the bass player and adds, vocals, effects, space echo and bass synths. Oh, she's an Illustrator by trade so check out the art work she does on this band's albums. What a talent.

I was so impressed with this band's latest called "Stardust Rituals". It's not as powerful as "The Doomsday Machine" which is fuelled by those distorted guitar expressions, no it's driven by the organ much of the time and is quite trippy. I prefer the new one surprisingly which is a top ten for 2017 for me. "The Doomsday Machine" is a long one as a lot of Space Rock albums are at almost 80 minutes while "Stardust Rituals" clocks in at 45 plus minutes. Both are essential in my opinion.

"Doomsday Machine" opens with this ominous repetitive beat with a fuzzed out guitar and bass helping out. Male vocals come in with a monotoned flavour a minute in. This is a mid-paced head banger and the guitar 3 minutes in is just screaming. Love that guitar before 7 minutes as well as the heaviness with vocals continues to lay waste. The heavy riffs and beats stop before 12 minutes as we get hit with a distorted guitar and then it turns dark and experimental. That heavy beat is back after 16 minutes as the vocals also return.

"Kleiner Knaller" is a top three track along with the next two. This one starts off in a laid back manner with bass, drums and relaxed guitar but it's building in intensity and tempo. Here we go! Just killing it before 2 minutes and check out the distortion before 3 minutes as they rip it up.

"Spaceman" opens with pulsating sounds that are speeding up until the disappear as a heavy groove kicks in. Great sound here. It's speeding up before 1 1/2 minutes. The guitar is grinding away almost swirling. So cool. Intense as distant male vocals arrive but they don't stay long. It starts to slow down 5 1/2 minutes in. This is really good too, love the bass and distant female vocals. She's back with space whispers before 8 minutes as sounds echo. It settles back quite a bit after 11 1/2 minutes to a more trippy, atmospheric sound to the end. Nice.

"Stardust Service" opens with distortion galore then the drums and bass kick in with a groove as the distorted guitar solos over top with aggression. It settles back at 1 1/2 minutes as the drums, bass and distorted guitar continue, just not as in your face. Spoken words before 2 1/2 minutes. Nice bass 3 1/2 minutes in as the spoken words continue. So good! The heaviness is back before 5 1/2 minutes as the vocals step aside for two minutes. How heavy is this at 8 1/2 minutes. It's slowed right down at 10 1/2 minutes then after 12 minutes it's pretty much drums, synths and some heavy bass lines. Spoken distorted words before 13 minutes. It's building again! It keeps building and the tempo is speeding up until all hell breaks loose. A calm with spoken words ends it. What a song!

"Feigenmonolog" opens with some deep atmosphere with guitar expressions in this laid back start. Before 2 minutes we get this BLACK SABBATH-like heaviness as it starts to build. Love that distorted guitar and check it out after 7 1/2 minutes. Just killing it! It settles back after 9 1/2 minutes and the distortion stops after 10 minutes as we get bass and drums with picked guitar. Nice. It settles back again at 13 minutes. Another calm then it's building again 16 minutes in until they are lighting it up big time once again. Check it out before 18 minutes!

This is my kind of music.