Kandodo / McBain - Lost Chants / Last Chance 2xLP

Label: Rooster

Our Review:

Lost Chants / Last Chance is the heavy-as-fuck space-rock collaboration between The Heads’ Simon Price (aka Kandodo) and John McBain. The latter may be best known for his work in both Monster Magnet and Queens Of The Stone Age; but the album seems to fall closer to The Heads’ take on drug-addled hypnorock. The opening track is self-evidently titled "Blown Out" leaving us with one less way of describing the album. This track like whole album was cut at 45rpm, but Kandodo and McBain have actively encouraged their audience to play the album at 33. So much so, that they included the slo-mo versions on the digital downloads. At 45rpm, "Blown Out" is emblematic of the entire album, standing as an epic psychonaut odyssey whose swaggering riffs are heavy-lidded with equal amounts of drug use and supercharged effects. Wah-wah drenched freak-outs, stoned distorted rhythms, and drone-on hypnorock grooves mark some of the deliciously exploratory detours through this method acting excursion of taking drugs to make music to take drugs to. At 33, the album sinks into a monolithic torpor of tarpit miasma and ice-planet / doomscape dirges as an unhinged Loop meets Sleep. This reviewer kindly prefers the cut at 45, but it's great to have the slower option endorsed by the band. Highly recommended for fans of White Hills, Carlton Melton, Spacemen 3, Bardo Pond, and that whole ilk.