The title can be seen equally as an allusion to the band’s high aspirations, and their cosmic brand of grand-scale psychedelic rock which the trio have become masters of. I wasn’t alone in giving their eponymous debut EP that drew the band so much attention, and built so much anticipation for the album, with favourable comparisons to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club amongst others being tossed around. Two years on from the EP and they’ve clearly spent the time honing their craft and shaping an album that wouldn’t only deliver on the EP’s promise, but build on it significantly.
The Black Angels-like heavy psych drone of ‘Take a Ride’, the only track culled from that EP, stands strong but it by no means eclipses the rest of the set, which is remarkably broad in its appeal. Desert Mountain Tribe are by no means one-trick ponies.
Beneath a dense blur of shimmering guitars, motoric drums power alongside a thudding bass and the vocals all but drown in a tide of reverb. ‘Feel the Light’ launches the album in a most exhilarating fashion, and at seven and a half minutes in duration, it’s nowhere near long enough.
The pace slows with the more deliberate ‘Midnight Sky’, which has all the hallmarks of being an immense anthem and finds Jonty Balls hollering his lungs out amidst a soaring guitar line. It’s everything the likes of Oasis and Kasabian aspire, or aspired, to be.
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‘Heaven and Hell’ is another psychedelic drone monster that boasts a Peter Hook-like bass run and builds to a sustained, surging crescendo, and the rip-roaring ‘Runway’ is a relentless surge of energy that illustrates everything that makes DMT a band to get excited about. It’s practically impossible to select highlights; every track is a winner, from the garagey keyboard-led ‘Enos in Space’.
The album’s bookended by a nine-minute epic in the shape of the multi-faceted prog of ‘Interstellar’ which, over the course of a succession of movements, evolves into a soaring climax and provides a fitting signoff to one of the strongest and most assured debut rock albums in a while.
Desert Mountain Tribe Online
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