Wednesday 27 May 2020

Black Rainbows - Cosmic Ritual Supertrip (Album Review)


Release date: May 22nd 2020. Label: Heavy Psych Sounds. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

Cosmic Ritual Supertrip – Tracklisting

1.At Midnight You Cry 02:57
2.Universal Phase 03:47
3.Radio 666 04:32
4.Isolation 03:38
5.Hypnotized By The Solenoid 05:36
6.The Great Design 02:00
7.Master Rocket Power Blast 03:21
8.Snowball 04:17
9.Glittereyzed 04:30
10.Sacred Graal 05:01
11.Searching For Satellites Part 1 & 2 04:33
12.Fire Breather 04:46

Members

GABRIELE FIORI
FILIPPO RAGAZZONI
EDOARDO MANCINI

Review

Italian Fuzz Rock Legends – Black Rainbows – return with their latest and perhaps greatest album to date with the band offering a more refined and action-packed sound that takes all the best elements of previous albums whilst allowing Black Rainbows moving their sound forward into the next decade and beyond. Black Rainbows continue their journey with Heavy Psychedelic Grooves that has their trademark style of Fuzz Rock, Psych Rock and Stoner Rock with a kick-ass 70s vintage sound.

The album starts with the fast-paced and upbeat sounds of – At Midnight You Cry – with the bands trademark FUZZY riffs moving along with a nice addictive edge. Gabriele is on inspired form with his excellent vocals that offer his usual top-notch performance with soulful attitude and experience to match. The music has always been Black Rainbows main strength and the band don’t disappoint with this hard-edge rocker that runs under 3 minutes but it’s a good indicator of how good this album really is and I appreciated the more sleazier sounding aspects of the album but that could be my own personal conclusion.

Second song – Universal Phase – is classic Black Rainbows through and through with a deeply satisfying vintage Psych/Space Rock sound with a dirty FUZZ Rock atmosphere allowing the band to add soundbytes to their music that brings in a 50s B Movie attitude to the mix. The song becomes a more livelier affair when the 50s soundbytes dictate on how the song plays out with great vocals and lyrics adding an extra layer of Stoner Rock class to the overall feel and sound of the album.

Third song – Radio 666 – is easily one of the most addictive songs on the album with superbly written lyrics that are quite easy to remember which allows the listener to become part of the action. The music does take time to fully get going but Black Rainbows have more time to play with this song and they play a more well rounded style of music on this song which is one of my favourite songs on the album.

The band continue their epic journey of focusing upon the best years of 70s Hard Rock and combining the Psychedelic Aggression of 90s Stoner Rock/Metal that will leave you with an almighty warm glow despite the current dark times that the whole world is going through.

Other standout songs on the album include, Isolation, Hypnotized By The Solenoid, Master Rocket Power Blast and Sacred Graal. Though the real highlight is perhaps the final two songs (Searching For Satellites Parts 1 & 2 and Fire Breather) which sees Black Rainbows offer an Acoustic Style of music we rarely hear from the band but this is a superbly written collection of two songs that we would perhaps expect from Gabriele other musical project – The Pilgrim.

Cosmic Ritual Supertrip features fantastic production which is always a given with Black Rainbows and albums released by Heavy Psych Sounds. So expect a vibrant and quite loud album especially when the DOOMIER aspects of the record appear throughout the album.

Overall, Cosmic Ritual Supertrip only enhances Black Rainbows reputation as one of today’s best bands within the Stoner Rock/Metal scene. This is a Top 10 album of the year contender for myself and I believe you will see this album in similar positions on other lists when the year is out.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Purple Sage PR for the promo. Cosmic Ritual Supertrip is available to buy now on CD/DD/Vinyl from Heavy Psych Sounds.

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