Tuesday 21 March 2017

BASK - Ramble Beyond (Album Review)


Release date: March 24th 2017. Label: This Charming Man Records (EU) / Self Aware Records (US). Format: CD/DD/Vinyl (Vinyl – due for release May 2017).

Ramble Beyond – Tracklisting

Asleep In the Orchard - 7:34
Mush! Carry Me Home -6:57
A Graceless Shuffle - 4:48
The Lonesome Sound - 6:39
Kindled Green - 5:45
In the Black Fir - 7:35

Band Members

Scott Middleton
Jesse Van Note
Ray Worth
Zeb Camp

Review

Bask is a band with the competence and confidence to usher you into a warm, luminescent netherworld with their original style, incredible power and radiant beauty. This album has a farther reach and a more top grade quality than its predecessor, however it doesn’t stray far afield from the band’s sacred heart signature sound. This is a psychedelic hard rock tour through the great American highlands.

This album is never hard to grasp, owing to it’s hearty, polished sound with all the fixings. It reminded me of many warm summer days in the past when I would sit cozily in the backseat of my father’s dilapidated sedan and listen to old 8-tracks on it’s antique tape player...the discovery of splendour, delivered in stereo. The songs are as catchy as the common cold, yet divergent as a strain of influenza.

Asleep in the Orchard is a song of graceful resonances attributed to the lovely glide of elastic fingers along a tolerant fret board. The background is awash with ambient sounds, muscle bound bass and grandiloquent drums. The collective vocal delivery is analogous to pouring several different carafe-filled varieties of preheated maple syrup on eager awaiting waffle squares.

Mush! Carry Me Home is pure transference of energy. The instruments build a great fire as the clement singing rises higher and higher with angelic delight. This is a refreshing dip in a glazed reservoir of rejuvenation; a phenomenon reserved for the giant, mournful, mystical buffalo. This song is a tremendous accomplishment that is expressed in only a short brace of melodic minutes.

A Graceless Shuffle is a buoyant tune. It is an almost cheerful track with flavorings of an uppity and mighty chunk jam at about the halfway mark. The end has some real explosive chemistry with its conjoint lyrical and musical structure.

The Lonesome Sound incorporates guitars that tear you open and cauterize you at the same time. The drums offer quirkiness with a punch and the bass is as fluid as a serene waterfall. The vocals stir emotion and astonish your ears. This is pure harmonious acupuncture.

Kindled Green is a dramatic arrangement of distorted riffs and ever so gracious choral passages. Phosphor burns bright this substance excited through smoky mountain pine tree secretion.

In the Black Fir is a magnificent steed of a song comprised of calm guitar strums, easy leads, and low-level distortion. This stallion reaches its stride without a startle.

Bask is a band that makes a house a home. They reveal a memorable, familiar sound, with an open invitation to join in and form a meaningful relationship with them through a gift…that gift being their own brand of music. It is impossible to ignore this musical offering and, regardless of righteous support, they will remain embraced with their curiosity, avoid frustration and endure along the exultant continuum. 

This is some of the best material written by any band; evidenced through above average songwriting ability, a passionate, lyrical intelligence and heartfelt, musical talent. This is a remarkable demonstration of melodic genius created by a shrewd horde of big-footed giants…behold and bear witness to legends among villagers!

Words by Nick Palmisano

Thanks to This Charming Records for the promo. Ramble Beyond will be available to buy on CD/DD/Vinyl via This Charming Man Records (EU) and Self Aware Records (US) from March 24th 2017. Vinyl will be released on May 19th 2017.

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