Of Sound Mind

Now this is how I like my concept albums! Use a theme based, let's say, around the nature of human psychology as it plays out in a community setting: a fairly definite concept yet broad enough to be interpreted as widely as listeners want. It's not too cerebral either (I understand the 20th century French writer Albert Camus was an influence here) but it's high-brow enough that only a fusion of stoner / doom metal and post-rock embellished with discreet atmospheric electronic effects, Hammond organ melodies and sometimes a hardcore edge can do the theme justice. Guest musicians become a necessity and this album needs no fewer than three such people to help the band.

For a second album, all the foregoing seems a tall order to handle and the whole project could have been pretentious and laughable especially with the Hammond organ involved. This instrument has very close associations with pop and rock music of the 1960s - 70s (think Deep Purple for example) and if someone had told me that "Of Sound Mind" was literally sprinkled with Hammond organ melodies throughout before I even heard it, I might have thought twice about hearing it. (Then again, perhaps not, because as you have probably figured out by now after reading my other reviews on this website, I'm willing to hear most things once and if they feature weird juxtapositions of instruments and genres, I'm even more willing to hear them once.) To their credit, Ancestors wield all their instruments (guitars, drums, organ, synth, electronics, cello and maybe more besides) and handle the various musical influences with aplomb and skill so that everything gels naturally as if Hammond organ together with electronica and doom metal is the most ordinary thing in the world and why do people think these elements are as different as chalk and cheese. The concept's demands and requirements are served admirably and while some tracks can be very long, the music comes over as well-balanced and even restrained. The Hammond organ is used primarily to add or generate melancholy, pain and anguish, or to give a thoughtful if dark outlook to the music if it threatens to sound even a little joyful, and so finds its proper use as a purveyor of ambience, mood and sonic texture.

Short instrumental tracks featuring electronic or acoustic music alternate with very long pieces that are primarily doom and post-rock and which have some sung lyrics but more usually are heavy on guitar-dominated instrumental improvisations based around several riffs while the Hammond organ plays around them. Early long tracks like "Mother Animal" and "Bounty of Age" focus on generous servings of slow, doomy, foghorn-like riffs reminiscent of work by bands like the Melvins, together with lighter, more melodic and moody 70s-styled hard rock. "Bounty ..." even features some blues-tinged electric guitar work that maintains the gloomy atmosphere. The instrumental sections can be very long but my impression is that they are done for emotional effect and to sustain a particular mood or train of thought. Listeners can't help but allow themselves to be seduced into a pensive mind-set, no matter how long this has to take.

The really pivotal tracks for me are "A Friend", "The Trial" and Challenging": the first of these is an all-ambient synth piece that suggests a transition with its heaving, bubbling scrunch working it sway through organ and synth tones which eventually fall into the dread-filled, portentous "The Trial". Guitar riffs whose every note falls hammer-like drag you towards some inevitable, unenviable fate that explodes into a hard-hitting near-hardcore blast where spacey ambient effects suddenly rise and pass into the skies above without warning. "Challenging" hints at another kind of transition in the improvised piano playing which often runs to overwrought trills before settling into something that sounds elegiac, as if someone deserving of much better has just passed away.

"The Ambrose Law" appears to sum up everything that's just gone by. Life continues, oblivious to an individual's sufferings. I find myself wishing at this point in the album that the lyrics to all the songs had been printed: I don't think too much of the concept would be given away if listeners were able to see the lyrics. Guitar riffs are very sinister in tone and the Hammond organ sounds painful as we charge through doom thunder to a surprising and shocking climax and revelation, after which the music gradually trudges into a sorrowful and funereal coda.

The whole musical package seems perfect as is and I don't see how parts of it can be bettered. On the other hand, most of the songs don't stand up well on their own and I think only "Mother Animal" and "Bounty of Age" could stand alone as songs separate from the rest of the album. (Not that I think Ancestors are planning to release any of the songs on the album as singles or demos.) The long guitar work-outs could be reduced perhaps in some tracks but they act mainly to release emotion or draw out particular moods - no superhuman arthritis-inducing finger-work that we associate with 70s hard rock is involved.

Possibly the musicians may have attempted to tap into some tribal or shamanic pre-Columbian state as suggested by some of the terse track titles and the album's artwork but if they did achieve that, it has completely passed me by. The long meandering music should be enough to carry most people into an altered state of consciousness, especially if you are listening to it on a long and lonely night which seems the ideal setting for this album.

Maybe it's over 30 years too late but "Of Sound Mind" could certainly teach the old rockers of yore a thing or two about how you successfully rope in listeners and keep up their attention levels with long guitar instrumental music. It's about the mood and the texture of the music, it's not about playing technique and doing things to excess. Somewhere in a parallel universe out there, on the parallel Earth, they've just come out of the late 60s and Ancestors and their kind are already performing "Of Sound Mind", providing some serious and transcendental competition to the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.