Old Time Relijun - Lost Light
(K)
Ragged, messy, and off-balance as this may be, this is the best record of its kind I've ever heard. Starting with Nick Cave's demented preacher persona and traveling backward (and backwood) in time to Captain Beefheart's squalid blues, Lost Light is an energetic and exciting album.
The opening three songs are absolutely incredible, and lay the rules out for the listener. "The Door I Came Through Has Been Closed (But I Keep Trying)" opens the album, launching immediately into a bizarre stuttered guitar line, which solidifies around an almost-broken-down drumbeat. While the second track, "Vampire Victim," is bound to be the song you notice first (thanks to its great lyrics about being bit by a vampire), the third track is what I find myself wanting to hear over and over. Singer Arrington de Dionyso's crazed screams on "Cold Water" (the theme of water recurs throughout the record) are treated with near indifference by the repetitive and relatively upbeat music. Losing himself in his guttural wailings, he screams with hair-raising desperation "Oh Please!/Oh Please!/Going down/through the trees/through the roots/through the mud/through the rocks/through the ground/through the water/Cold Water!"
Part of what keeps the overflowing energy and drunken chaos an asset to the music is that they're mindful of stretching certain bits out and letting things cool down a bit. Track 5, "Music of the Spheres" is an instrumental based around ringing tones and a distorted guitar having its neck wrung. And "Cold Water, Deep Underwater" might sound pretty normal with its electronic drums, melodic (and not too weird) guitar "solo" (sort of like something Isaac Brock might play), "The Rising Water, the Blinding Light" is right behind, and it follows up nicely by translating all of the fear and malice of "Cold Water" into unnerved paranoia.
With so many of the bands on K having focused so heavily upon having an upbeat outlook and senses of wonder, it seems as if Old Time Relijun has somehow channeled any negative energy and wrapped it all up in their dissonant and crooked musical view.
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