A slightly murky, multi-layered lo-fi production, freak-out psychedelia and blues-based stoner rock collide on Sonic Mass’s outstanding debut full-length, ‘All Creatures Strange’, resulting in what can only be described as ‘Outsideinside’ era Blue Cheer waging war against the conspiratorial paranoia of being governed by a shadow empire of reptilian overlords. No shit. ‘All Creatures Strange’ is a blistering, kaleidoscopic journey that bends the mind almost as hard as it rocks.
Sonic Mass doesn’t hesitate to show their intentions as album-opener “Iron Bong” sets the tone by launching into a scorching, minute-and-a-half instrumental before settling into a bluesy, up-beat jam. The second track, “The Order”, starts with a simple garage rock riff that would undoubtedly make The Sonics proud and then hurls itself into stoner rock territory. “The Order” stands out amongst the eight tracks of the album by ultimately boasting some of the album’s sexiest, grooviest riffs and then driving it home with some excellent guitar harmonies and vocals.
While a majority of ‘All Creatures Strange’ plays out as stoner rock executed with a garage rock intensity, the band often takes the listener into the stratosphere for some truly spaced-out moments. The latter half of “Widow Stone – The Black Lodge”, as an example, is an extended cosmic jam that is awash in acid-tinged leads, swirling noise, and wah pedal abuse before things get really weird. Ride the fucking snake…
Though the entirety of ‘All Creatures Strange’ is superb, the trilogy of tunes consisting of “Rise of the Royal Reptile”, “Black Acid Nightmare”, and album highlight “Pentagon Chameleon – To the Devil…a Daughter” simply make the album. “Rise of the Royal Reptile” kicks things off with some intertwining guitar leads that build-up and lead into one of the most immediately gratifying tunes of the album. If ‘All Creatures Strange’ had an immediate hit single, this would be it. It’s catchy, heavy, and representative of the band’s overall sound. “Black Acid Nightmare”, the album’s shortest track, brings back some of the weird with its slightly demented, unconventional riffs and distorted background vocals.
“Black Acid Nightmare” bleeds into arguably the strongest, most dynamic song of the album, “Pentagon Chameleon – To the Devil…a Daughter”, where the lead-in track becomes slightly perverted and overdriven before eventually slowing down to a bluesy crawl bathed in waves of feedback, atmospheric guitars, and soulful vocals. Roaring interstellar noise ultimately usurps what could have been one of the album’s “slowest” songs, and closes out the track with a fiery, spaced-out intensity.
With ‘All Creatures Strange’ Sonic Mass have crafted an unbelievably awesome full-length that effortlessly combines heavy blues, garage rock, and psychedelia into a potent elixir that’ll either have you breathing through your teeth with anxiety and paranoia or blissfully rocking the Hell out to their mystifying tunes. Hopefully 2014 will see a physical release of this amazing debut. Highly recommended…
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