Saturday, October 4, 2008

An Albatross- The An Albatross Family Album

Philly's An Albatross have sort of followed in the footsteps of The Locust, but they sound like an entirely different drug. Sort of an East Coast v. West Coast battle for electronic spazzed-out grindcore punk mayhem kings.

Their previous album BOTPBFATBWK (look it up for the full title) sounded like a Fear and Loathing circus acid trip complete with grinding organs, a demented horn section and vomiting on the carousel. Their move to Eyeball Records sees the band exploring more psychedelic landscapes while keeping intact their full-on hard-on of speeding start-stop punk rock mixed with that sinister organ and bastard brass. Tribal drumming, haunting flute, and primal shrieking vocals push this record to the brink of insanity.

Things spiral into a cosmic state of spiritual healing on "The Hymn of the Angel People" as a bizzare monologue of science fiction and fantasy explains the tale of pilgrims, lovebeasts, and the cosmos, something right out of a Manowar record. But as you start to lose yourself you are awaken from your dream and brought back into the nitemare. The room starts spinning around in slow motion on "Starving on Rabbit Meat." Ride the groove on "Floodgates Released," and trip back into a mournful state as the album closes with weeping violins that melt into a calming aura only to be destroyed by the chaos once more as you crash to your majestic, apocalyptic death.

An Albatross myspace