If The End of the Game is Peter Green's attempt to extract the demons
from his acid-infused skull with guitar, then Mouthus' Slow Globes is the
sounds that were going on in his head at the time. Slow Globes, Mouthus'
second album of the year, is an album filled with murky, chaotic ritual music
peppered with spasm guitars, jungle drumming, and low-pitched chants. Miles
apart from the thick industrial sludge of their self-titled debut and the slow,
calculated explorations of Loam, Slow Globes is, believe it or
not, more experimental and challenging than anything the band has released to
date.
"Storms," a thunderous rearrangement/deconstruction of a Buckingham/Nicks-era
Fleetwood Mac song, kicks off the album with an infectiously creepy guitar line
that reminds me of a Komono No. 1 thumb piano jam. It is complemented by a
tribal drumbeat, while the vocals of Brian Sullivan are buried beneath the
unrelenting fuzz. The track is by far the most aggressive track on the album,
and things only getting darker as the album progresses.
Both "See Us Look" and "Go to Freeze" explore a more industrial territory with
cackling effects and fuzzy, clanging guitar lines, further accented by xylophone
and keyboards. Both ascend to great heights with Nate Nelson's abusive drumming
and Brian Sullivan's long snake-moan chants. "Scatterings" and "Way to Fade Your
Cloud" prove that there is, indeed, beauty to be found in the muck. The former
features a gloriously plucked guitar line that sounds like the soundtrack to an
8mm film showcasing a rotting carousel, while the latter features the band
reinterpreting the Sun City Girls take on "world music," complete with a
landscape of falling sounds reminiscent of Asian tonality.
Mouthus' sound bounces around the psyche creating a sort of psychotic resin
around the brain. And with Slow Globes, the group has created a heady
chunk of introverted psychedelica sure to be the soundtrack to many creepy
crawls around the United States.
1. Storms
2. See Us Look
3. This Is My Snow
4. Go To Freeze
5. Way To Fade Your Cloud
6. Scatterings
More about: Mouthus
