Holy Mountain have a rough-hewn but artisan's skill in one enduring musical product: fashioning thunking great slabs of riffage. This, their debut album proper, takes the template laid down on their excellent Earth Measures mini-album from 2012 and expands it into the longer form.
The trio specialise in riffs of all kind: repitilian sneak ones, great clunking ones, scabrous hurtling ones and, as in the superb final section of one of the best songs here, Luftwizard, relentless pile-driving riffs that raise comparisons with some of the great heavy guitar bands of the past.
Holy Mountain are metallic but not quite Metal with a captial M, there is a nimble quality to their sonic assaults and, in the chanting vocals of a psychedelic stomper such as Star Kings, a dreaminess we may not associate with nodding necks and devil finger signs.
As with all heavy guitar bands, the shadows of the past can never be quite escaped, but I hear more the influence of the Black Sabbath of the Paronoid and Master Of Reality era than more recent fads. I was hoping for some breaks in form from the constantly driving guitar work, and the album's sound may grate if you are not in the mood to completely rock-out.
The majority of Ancient Astronauts will have an extra depth of sound and attack in the live arena. It will be fascinating to watch whether this powerful trio develop into something truly interesting.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article