Smoke – The Mighty Delta of Time
Release Date: 27th May 2022
Label: Argonauta
Genre: Desert Rock, Southern Sludge, Psychedelic Rock.
FFO: Nebula, Wo Fat, Somali Yacht Club, The Delta Saints, Truckfighters.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Listening to this debut album from Smoke, and in particular lead single Lineage with its mix of bayou swamp grooves and wicked slide/steel guitar, you’d win no prizes for guessing that they grew up around the wetlands and woods of the South. What might surprise you, though, is that it was not the South of the US, but the arresting South of the Netherlands.
Drawing their inspiration from nature, Smoke create an intense fusion of melody, groove, and hard-hitting riff tornados. The slide guitar is most prominent in the aforementioned track, yet it is never far away and always there at just the right moment to add some southern sass into proceedings. Whether it be to lift the spirits in the sombre Bereft, or resonate through the groove-oriented, growling bass of second single Motion, a track which the band explain is about protecting the environment from further damage and planning the way forward.
The final two tracks on this seven-track album are both ten-minute plus masterpieces. With its eerie opening and chanting vocals, Time is the sound of a Southern style baptism in the mighty waters of the Delta. Once the ceremony has been completed, you are set adrift downstream, your white gown billowing across the surface of the water as the musical eddies and currents swirl around you (an analogy for the passage of time as well?). Sometimes the waters are calm, the skies are clear, and you can enjoy the warmth of the sun rays, other times the clouds loom darker, and the current gets stronger, before the swell increases to a crescendo, and you are delivered safely to the shore.
In contrast, Umoya feels warmer, as if you are now safely on the shore wrapped in a blanket around a crackling fire and surveying the vastness of the night sky overhead. As it progresses, it weaves more psychedelic elements into the mix becoming more spiritual in atmosphere (Umoya means ‘Spirit’ in Zulu) as it, again, builds to a rousing conclusion.
Having surprised and delighted me in equal measure with this sublime debut, I will leave it to the band to issue the following invitation.
“Let us take you with us on a trip through our Psychedelic Swamp with this Rock groover and share some of our family gumbo with y’all”.
(4.5 / 5)
