Cleopatra 2015
Friday The 13th
Going underground: live descent of enigmatic French followers of fallen morning star.
They’re a cult band in every sense of the word, preaching to Satan and pulling folks in scores for the ride since 2008 when “Under The Moon Of…” saw the light of night. It’s all an act, of course, a wicked circus run by multi-instrumentalist David Sphaèr’os, but any act needs public, so July 2014 saw the band on a club stage with a conceptual performance bent out of their studio output – bar the aforementioned debut. In such circumstance, even familiar tracks take on a new meaning, while new pieces complete the puzzle, the cover of “It’s Now Or Never” revealing a humorous romanticism behind the scary sounds, although the urgency doesn’t dwell here.
That’s a nightmarish experience, felt deep when the “in your dreams” mantra of “Human Toad” breaks into silence to usher an organ wave which gets a sitar lining for the “Kill Yourself” meditation, yet the initial twang under “Jungle Man” is full of surf innocence – one shattered with the bottom end of “Bloody Orgasm (The Forgotten One)”. There’s also cinematic horror to “Spiritus Mundi” whose spaced-out oscillations unfold into a raga-ragged guitar ripple with a bluest streak but, given weight by mesmeric incantations, this danse macabre turns “Turn On” into a discotheque, the vocals, an axis for a stereo swirl, remaining deadly calm throughout. Well, almost, as “Lucifer” finds the ensemble in a frenzied action, melding psych to metal and gearing up for the finale, the thirteenth cut on offer: “Ready To Fly” is a genuine tour de force, rooted in the ’70s HAWKWIND soil, with the synthesizers’ rage, but aimed at the future – in retro terms.
Here’s something to look forward to and marvel at.
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