Thursday, 2 July 2015

Cherry Choke - A Night in the Arms of Venus Leads to a Lifetime on Mercury, album review



Cherry Right on the Top

More retro rock, this time from 2011 and this power trio’s second album, where there is a hard rock edge, but I do love the late 60s distortion and other effects of second The Day She Came to Play which is a tad more subtle than bat-to-face heaviness. This is immediately followed by the garage velocity of third Winchester Geese, so be prepared for the sharp shifts. Dan Lockton on drums pounds this one out with great venom. Fourth Domino is a more psychedelic groove, and the guitar of Mat Bethancourt wah-wahs aptly above another fast-paced foundation: nine minutes of quite raw energy as the guitar work gets an extended freak-out, echoes of The Who in the song’s closing rhythms. Fifth Evol continues the thundering – though with another shift in its punctuating balladic breaks from vocalist Mat – and Gregg Hunt’s bass is a rampant gem on this track. For consummate psychedelia, seventh Silver Crossed My Mind is exquisite, and by this stage you know you are listening to an album that has depths of significance, and the ‘retro’ of its sound is far more creative and genuine than that tag can imply. When closer Splinters evokes Jefferson Airplane you know for certain these guys have done their aural homework, and I give the whole an A*.


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