Desert Storm - Horizontal Life

(Blindsight Records, 2013)

Oxford’s stoner groove merchants Desert Storm have had a pretty good few years. In the time since their second album Forked Tongues was released, they’ve played with stoner titans Weedeater and Orange Goblin, toured with Karma To Burn and Honky, and rocked a packed-out room at the inaugural DesertFest, all in between gigging regularly despite band members being spread around the UK. You may think this is all tedious information but it all informs the band’s third album Horizontal Life, released on Blindsight Records. The band sound tighter than they ever have on record before and this can most certainly be attributed to the road-hardened skills of each of the players. The songs have been worked out and improved in front of audiences all over the UK. And as for the album title, well – you’d probably be living a horizontal life if you partied with the likes of Orange Goblin and Karma To Burn…

The first half of Horizontal Life is entirely dedicated to what Desert Storm have become so well-known for: inexhaustible stoner riffing, delivered with a Southern outlaw attitude. Many of the tracks here have become such a staple of the band’s live set that it’s almost surreal hearing them in their recorded forms – they feel instantly familiar, like old classics. Strident opener “Word to the Wiseman” is a case in point; the words, the groove and the almighty riffs will soon be embedded in your cerebral cortex (if they’re not already). Likewise, marijuana anthem “No Slave to Master” is another one to watch out for, with a bad-arse, Rage Against the Machine-like guitar rhythm seemingly custom-designed to break necks. The song even has a fucking bong solo for Christ’s sake. And while one or two of the songs here are actually re-recordings of tracks from the band’s limited edition debut album, they’re given a complete facelift in terms of delivery, performance, recording quality and production – again proving the virtues of road-testing and refining songs. Anyone who has seen the band in the last two or three years will have heard and got-down to the  mini-epics “Shadow of an Eagle” and “Astral Planes.”

However, Desert Storm have also grown and mastered new styles that they’d previously only hinted at on Forked Tongues. Firstly there’s the ferocious “Enslaved in the Icy Tundra” in which the band sound more bludgeoning than ever before – the rhythmic onslaught caved further into your head by singer Matt’s heavy whisky-burned growl. The same could be said for “Shenzhen” which may be the heaviest thing the band has ever recorded. But it is the central ten minute “Titan” that most impresses and demonstrates the full breadth of the band’s abilities. Initially crashing in with a familiar Southern goove, the band then take an unexpected minor turn by seguing into a paranoid and psychedelic verse, before finally giving way for an extended atmospheric jam of minimalistic organ, airy synths and distant bluesy guitar licks. It’s a startling and evocative mid-point to the album that signals the way for further experimentation on “Gaia” which continues and improves upon Forked Tongues‘ acoustic raga “Connected” (which now feels like a failed experiment in comparison). Indeed, “Gaia” is a lush hymn, combining layers of crystal clear acoustic guitar arpeggios, tabla drums, and ebows to truly beautiful effect. It might not be to everybody else’s tastes, but if nothing else it’ll shut up the detractors who suggest that Desert Storm are a one-trick pony. And they close the album with two more stormers in the form of “Hofmann” and “Scorpio” anyway, so everyone’ll be happy.

It’s fair to say that Horizontal Life is a step forward for the band in pretty much every sense. The musicianship and production is tight and packs a massive punch and as a result the album feels more cohesive, more assured and yet more experimental than anything they’ve done before. And really, what more can you ask from a band than that they continue to grow and refine what makes them great? The future looks bright for these guys, and with this album behind them and yet more tours with the likes of Karma To Burn on the horizon, the enterprising Desert Storm may soon be trading a Horizontal Life for a vertical climb.

[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 09/04/2013]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/d/desert-storm-horizontal-life-cd-dd-2013/

Orange Goblin / Grifter / Desert Storm / Komrad @ O2 Academy 2, Oxford, 14/04/2012

Photo (c) Pier Corona

Last time Buried in Smoke and Pure Concentrated Evil brought Orange Goblin to Oxford it was in the grand and spacious expanses of the Regal, a venue that was perhaps too large to ever fill with Orange Goblin fans, especially in Oxford. This time, however, the promoters brought the vintage stoner rockers to the upstairs room of the O2 Academy, a venue far better suited to the band’s fan-base and brand of sweaty rock and/or roll.

The venue was respectably – if sparsely – populated when opening act Komrad took to the stage, but more and more people piled in throughout the course of their set. Pound for pound, Komrad had more musical ideas going on than all of the other bands combined – often in the space of one song. Opening track ‘Robotmen’, for example, sounds like the soundtrack to a broken circuit and could probably be compartmentalised into an EPs worth of material. Watching guitarists Jimmy Hetherington and Russ Blaine shimmy up and down their respective fretboards so nonchalantly is quite disconcerting and I come away with something akin to penis envy. The rhythm section of drummer James Currie and bassist Dave Cranwell lock into some incredibly shifty, tumultuous grooves while James Greene half screams, half croons about parking restrictions in seaside towns and various other gripes. It’s hard to describe what Komrad do really – they’re kind of like Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band meets Faith No More. ‘Cowley Necktie’, their perennial set-closer and the band’s twisted ode to Cowley Road, is the song that finds the band at their most triumphant, head-nodding, crowd-pleasing best. An odd but excellent start to the night.

Oxford’s crowning stoner rock titans Desert Storm waste no time kicking into some mighty sand-swept grooves with frontman Matt Ryan temporarily transposed into the form of a whiskey-soaked and highly volatile Southern deviant. ‘Ol’ Town’, ‘Cosmic Drips’ and ‘Astral Planes’ all contain riffs that are pretty much too good to be true, kicking up almighty dust clouds along the imagined dirt-roads that the band are traversing. Sure there are occasional hints of Clutch, Kyuss, Sleep and Pantera throughout their set but one of Desert Storm’s strengths is being able to balance their influences with their own take on the genre, all with a sly sense of not taking themselves too seriously. They nod in unison, Chris Benoist rocks out with his legs spread dangerously far apart and Matt Ryan riles the crowd into a beer and Orange Goblin sized frenzy. It’s fair to say that the Oxford lot have done themselves proud tonight and Desert Storm prove that no-one in Oxford cuts a groove quite like these guys.

Next up are Orange Goblin’s touring mates, Plymouth’s good-time party band Grifter. One of Grifter’s biggest selling-points is frontman Ollie Styall who is as good an entertainer as you could ask for, the perfect hype man to get the crowd ready for Orange Goblin. In between songs about Guinness, buck-toothed women and “rock n’ roll” Stygall talks about Guinness, buck-toothed women and rock n’ roll, and wins the ever-cynical Oxford crowd over – no mean feat. Musically the band touch base with AC/DC, early Slade, Motorhead, even Spinal Tap on a few occasions (that’s no insult, Spinal Tap fucking rule) and even knock out a damn fine cover of ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ by Black Sabbath. The guys then reveal that one of their songs, ‘Sweat Like Horses’, is going to be used in the new series of Dog: Bounty Hunter. You get the picture – these guys aren’t out to change the world, they’re just making good ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll and the now-packed O2 Academy lap it up.

Orange Goblin. Got to be honest, not a massive fan – some of their stuff I can listen to, some of their stuff I tend to tune-out for. Last time they played in Oxford at the Regal I thought they were abysmal and over-hyped beyond belief. Tonight, in the smaller, cosier confines of the O2 they actually came across far better in contrast. Frontman/giant Ben Ward spends the first five to ten minutes of their set stomping around the stage, drinking beer, pushing the microphone stand out into the crowd and shaking his beefy arms in the air (presumably to appease/arouse the gods of rock or something) before the band cut into a set heavily composed of the new album with a handful of oldies thrown-in for, y’know, the oldies in attendance. The new album, apparently something of a return to form for the band after a few misses, is best represented by ‘Red Tide Rising’, a song designed to get the crowd moving. But it’s one the evening’s mellower moments that really wins me over – ‘Time Travelling Blues’, one of the band’s most beloved songs, a sort of homage to the lazy, nostalgic rock n’ roll of Lynyrd Skynyrd et al. But if the best that be said about your set is that it’s highly derivative or ‘alright’ then something is clearly off. The musicianship throughout is excellent but the content is too safe, too stale and too predictable to warrant the heroic reception these guys receive.

[Originally published on Music in Oxford, 15/05/2012]

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2012/05/15/orange-goblin-grifter-desert-storm-komrad-o2-academy-2-oxford-14042012/