Wilderness Of Mirrors. The Black Angels

Time flies. One of the points of proof is that bands I've discovered later on in life are with me for over a decade. One of these bands is The Black Angels. In the time before Spotify, The Pirate Bay was the way to try out new bands. Illegal downloading? Well, in The Netherlands the government upheld the fiction that downloading was not illegal. Uploading was. The result for The Black Angels? I bought two of its albums and have been to shows. In all other cases I would probably have never heard of the band.

Come 2022 and finally there's a new album. The Black Angels still do what they are best at. Mix psychedelia and darkness with The Velvet Underground. The result is a perfect mix of alternative rock music that can find itself in a mid tempo and in some extremely tough rockers. Listen to the stark riff kicking off 'History Of The Future' and you'll know what I mean. At this point 'Empires Falling' still has to start....

Hearing new music of a band in the past, was always a disappointing affair. It never met my expectations. Usually things came out well in the end. It was only a matter of getting used to the new songs. Nowadays things are very different. Wilderness Of Mirrors came across as excellent immediately. The Black Angels obviously rock, are in its element and really show its ready to present its new music to the world.

And me? I have no explanation for this difference of welcoming new music. The only argument I can think of, is that my relationship with albums has changed over the years. When a teenager I only had a few albums and they meant the world to me. Now I have thousands and thousands and that simply is not the same. It still happens every once in a while, this intense relationship with an album but far less often.

Five years after 'Death Song', with the fantastic, antipode, title song 'Life Song', The Black Angels are back with an, in a relative way, open album. The sound is somewhat more upbeat and a few songs have the kind of pop feel The Velvet Underground had when Nico or Doug Yule sang. The Black Angels put more power behind its pop songs. Take 'El Jardin'. The song takes off at a light pace, to change into a monster of a pop song, with singer Alex Maas singing at his best. Drummer Stephanie Bailey is drumming as if this is the last song before she can go home, as in a final sprint.

The Black Angels keeps up this level of quality effortlessly down Wilderness Of Mirrors' road. Some French delight comes by, as do some other surprises. Modern psychedelia comes by in many, many guises. The Black Angels' guise is to rock out loud and serve it up with a lot of warbling, bubbling, sissling and other slightly estranging effects. They are all spot on. Modern psychedelia at its best this album and band is.

Wout de Natris

 

You can listen to and order Wilderness Of Mirrors here:

https://blackangels.bandcamp.com/album/wilderness-of-mirrors