Big Scenic Nowhere – The Long Morrow
Release Date: 14th January 2022
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Bandcamp
Genre: Prog Rock, Stoner Rock, Desert Rock, Psych Rock.
FFO: Yawning Man, Mos Generator, Fu Manchu.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Big Scenic Nowhere is the ambitious project formed by Bob Balch (Fu Manchu) and Gary Arce (Yawning Man) on guitar, quickly joined by Tony Reed (Mos Generator) on bass, vocals and keyboards, and Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) on drums, combining their respective talents in the fields of desert, psych, classic and progressive rock.
There is an old adage in football about it being a ‘game of two halves. A cliché maybe, but, to me, describing the sophomore album from this Californian rock collective as an album of two halves fits perfectly. The first half did not leave a great impression. Defector (of Future Days) tries to start with a bang but is underwhelming, and I found the vocal style adopted by the singer instantly annoying. Next, and the best bit to come out of the dirgy soup that is Murder Klipp comes about two thirds of the way through when the band stop trying to play four different Alice in Chains songs all at the same time. The gentler and more prog-infused Lavender Bleu is a reworking of a track from their previous Lavender Blues EP that just sort of drifts past, whilst LeDü is a three-minute slice of ‘ok’ desert rock.
Half-time then. Not in terms of track numbers, there are only five tracks on the album, but, as the last one (at nearly twenty minutes) is as long as all the others put together, I think putting the division here makes sense. Given what had gone before, the thought of listening to this monolithic title track was not filling me with great enthusiasm…
BUGGER ME!
Where the hell did that come from?
WOW!
The Long Morrow is simply stunning! A multi-layered opus that completely obliterates memories of what went before.
The band state that jamming is at the heart of their musical collaboration. The first four songs certainly sound like the result of jam sessions, but ones where the band were in separate rooms and not necessarily able to hear what the others were playing. To continue the football analogy, The Long Morrow sounds like the coach put them all in the same room together, told them to ignore their first half performance, focus on playing as a team and just do what they do best. You can almost hear the exhalation of breath as each member relaxes into their role, creating an epic soundscape that highlights all the band’s numerous strengths.
There are trippy, ethereal passages that sound like early Pink Floyd, stoner rock sections with fuzzier riffs and magnificent guitar solos where Bob and Gary play off each other perfectly. Each letting the other showcase their own style before effortlessly taking over the reins and soaring off in a new direction.
At no point during its running time does it feel like the band are just treading water or drawing things out due to lack of ideas. Sometimes listening to tracks of this length can feel like running a marathon, dragging your knackered body over the finish line, the last thing you want is to do it all over again. Not here, I hit repeat straight away and enjoyed it even more.
I have since gone back and reappraised the first half, to see if my opinion has change in the light of the superb second half comeback. Not sure. There are more little snippets of greatness buried away, but I’m not completely won over…. yet.
Maybe, it’ll just take a bit longer.
(3.5 / 5)
