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Fricke’s Picks: Black Angels

4/23/08, 2:25 pm EST

Even by the nonstop-rock standards of 2008’s SXSW festival, it was weird to see a band that seems to live on ultraviolet light, out in broad daylight, making rippling-tremolo drone on the lawn of a downtown Austin restaurant. But local tripsters the Black Angels bring the aura of mid-1966 — the drilling guitars of early Velvet Underground shows, the raga inflections of late-show Fillmore jams, the acid-prayer stomp of Austin avatars the 13th Floor Elevators — everywhere they go, including the levitations on their second album, Directions to See a Ghost (Light in the Attic). Mid-Eighties echoes of Spacemen 3 and the Jesus and Mary Chain also roll through the scoured-guitar sustain and Alex Maas’ rocker-monk incantations. But he knows what time it is. “You say the Beatles stopped the war,” Maas sings in “Never/Ever.” “They might’ve helped to find a cure/But it’s still not over.” Even so, this medicine works wonders.


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Comments

Donovan | 4/23/2008, 4:13 pm EST

Thank god someone finally noticed how awesome this band is.

Dave | 4/24/2008, 7:17 am EST

The Black Angels are FANTASTIC. Great live band, great first album. The new one has lots of promise, too.

tuesday | 5/3/2008, 8:56 am EST

the black angels live is an out of body trance experience. you can feel yourself lift up and all that exists is the music in front of you, around you, coming up from the floorboards and moving through your limbs.

david fricke, you have taste.

Chris Pelling | 6/5/2008, 9:22 am EST

While their first album was incredible, Directions to See a Ghost has turned it up a notch. They’ve taken their sound in a great direction– more towards the psychadelic– and it suites them perfectly. The Black Angels don’t sound like they’re going to top off anytime soon, and I look forward to hearing them on their rise to stardom.

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