Friday 3 August 2018

Spacetrucker - Smooth Orbit (Album Review) and Exclusive Song Premiere Of HOTBOX AIRLOCK


Release date: August 17th 2018. Label: Self Released. Format: CD/DD

Smooth Orbit – Tracklisting

Sample Of A Sample
Not As Hung
Breach
Meat Wagon
Fuck Up
Hotbox Airlock
Cat March
Vanishing Point
Pulling Teeth
Lost In The Sauce

Members

Mike Owen - Guitar and Vocals
Rob Wagoner - Bass and Vocals
Del Toro - Drums

Review

Spacetrucker new album Smooth Orbit is a highly confident mix of Spaced Out Stoner Metal with elements of Fuzz Rock, Desert Rock and good old fashioned Psychedelic Rock. The album is quite adventurous in how the band delivers their music and vocals with a heavy progressive edge

Opening track - Sample Of A Sample - is almost eight minutes of heavy psychedelic rock until a vintage Kyuss sounding guitar riff changes the entire tone and atmosphere of the song. The vocals can be quite boisterous at first but that soon settles down when the vocals adapt a more classic Desert/Stoner Rock sound. Even though the music is quite flashy and OTT at times this allows Spacetrucker to show people who is BOSS and they hold your attention throughout the album. There are some heavy screeching guitars that even put myself out of my comfort zone as the mood can be very doomy and sludgy at times.

Second song - Not As Hung - has a more punk and streetwise sound with the spiky lyrics showing a different side to Spacetrucker. The familiar Spaced Out/Desert/Stoner Rock sounds are still there but at least Spacetrucker are not afraid to change things even on the early stages of the album.

Third track - Breach is a heavy instrumental song that has a thumping bass line and an almost seedy atmosphere.

Fourth song - Meat Wagon - is one of my favourite songs on the album as it opens with a blues rock riff before adding traces of wicked doom sounds and then the murky Stoner riffs fully takeover. The song has a more nineties alt-rock/grunge feel compared to the other songs on the album.

The remainder of the album sees Spacetrucker creating different sounds on the other songs held on the album. With songs: Hotbox Airlock, Cat March, Vanishing Point Science and the ten minute plus epic - Lost In The Sauce being the ones that offer the most exciting and heaviest riffs on the album.

Spacetrucker include a mixture of long and short songs on the album and they perhaps impress the most on the longer tracks. As they have more time to play around with. The shorter songs have a more direct sound mainly due to the short timescales that are involved. When the band weave their psychedelic magic on Hotbox Airlock, Pulling Teeth and Lost In The Sauce then it's hard not to be impressed by the Psychedelic craziness of it all.

The album has a very adventurous spirit and Spacetrucker do indeed take you on a trippy spaced out journey. The production has a vintage raw sound and that's perhaps how Spacetrucker want to be heard on the album. Smooth Orbit is an album that could have been released anytime over the last thirty years and still be considered a great modern sounding album. Smooth Orbit has a timeless feel to it and this is an album that will see Spacetrucker's stock rise within Stoner Rock/Metal scene.

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Curtis at Dewar PR for the promo. Smooth Orbit will be released on CD/DD from August 17th 2018.

To get you into the mood for the album, you can hear this exclusive song premiere of HOTBOX AIRLOCK.

  
Links:

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