I always like to give props to local New York bands whenever possible, so it was a pleasant surprise to see this latest Small Stone release come across my desk from It's Not Night: It's Space, a psychedelic space rock/drone/doom trio from New Paltz, a cool little college town just a few short miles from where I live and a place that I spent 4 years in the mid-'80s gaining my bachelors degree. What I wouldn't have given to experience something like It's Not Night: It's Space back in 1985, a band who take plenty of chances with their instrumental attack, blending thunderous doom metal with tripped out psychedelia, prog, and atmospheric drone. The band features Kevin Halcott on guitar, Tommy Guerrero on bass, and Michael Lutomski on drums, and their sophomore album is titled Our Birth Is But A Sleep And A Forgetting, and is comprised of six tracks of mind numbing sonic explorations that run the gamut from frantic psych freakouts to crushing bestial barrages to more sedate meditations. "Starry Wisdom" starts off like the latter, but then the pulsating, driving beat kicks in followed by heavy bass & guitar rumblings and effects laden guitar solos. "The Beard of Macroprosopus" is like a wild acid trip where Hawkwind and Black Sabbath are sharing the stage and jamming to the wee hours of the morning, while "Pillars in the Void" bubbles and boils with slow, menacing intensity, shards of fuzz & wah-wah laced guitar flying in all directions. The trio pound out the doom on the ominous "The Black Iron Prison And The Palm Tree", a lumbering, heavy, and quite chilling number that closes the album out in chaotic fashion.
It's Not Night: It's Space are probably an incredible live act, but their power is well captured in the studio here on Our Birth Is But A Sleep And A Forgetting. Check it out and experience what the INNIS musical mind trip is all about.
Track Listing
1. Nada Brahma
2. The Beard Of Macroprosopus
3. Across the Luster of the Desert Into the Pol...
4. Starry Wisdom
5. Pillars In The Void
6. The Black Iron Prison And The Palm Tree
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