Black Rainbows – Superskull
Release Date: 9th June 2023
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Bandcamp
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Space Rock, Stoner Rock.
FFO: Fu Manchu, Monster Magnet (early), Nebula, Psychlona.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Roman threesome Black Rainbows are well established and revered on the European scene. Spreading the Fuzz since 2007, their sound sits firmly between 90s-style Californian Stoner Rock, deep-cosmos Psychedelia and hard-driving Space Rock. Superskull is the ninth album of their career and shows that the band have absolutely no intention of slowing down and taking it easy.
The first third of the album feels like taking a road trip along sun baked California desert roads in a vintage minibus, spewing thick smoke and heavy riffs from every orifice. The combination of Apocalypse March, Superhero Dopeproof exploding with the energy of a small supernova, while Children of Fire and Sacrifice and Cosmic Ride of the Crystal Skull aim to make you shake your ass with some groovy stoner boogie.
When your ass has stopped shaking you realise that the bus has reached its destination, an isolated launch pad in the middle of the desert plain, where (like the most tripped out Transformer ever) it becomes a space shuttle and blasts off into the inky blackness of the cosmos, soundtracked by the psychedelic melodies of The Pilgrim Son. A nine-minute space rock odyssey that grows in power and density like matter coalescing around a black hole.
Till The Outerspace and Lone Wolf allow for a brief comfort break on a small planetoid. The earthy riffs return, but the psychedelic presence continues.
Off into the void once more, the acoustic balled King Snake provides a brief moment of calm before the monolithic Desert Sun hits with the kind of impact that asteroid would have made had Bruce Willis failed. All The Chaos In Mine is the calm AFTER the storm with some further trippy, space rock melodies. Superskull then ends with the Bluesy funky Megolamania.
If an entrancing blend of fuzz, stoner riffs and cosmic psychedelia sound like your thing, stick out a thumb and grab a ride.
(4 / 5)
