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Double REL

Cereal Killerz!

Doof (Israel)

One of my favourite artists, on one of my favourite labels, with cover art and album & track titles so questionable that they must surely be taking the piss. In short – it hardly needs reviewing, you just know that psyreviews ought to get all frothy about this one. Combining fullpowa nighttime psychedelia with the humour and quirk of near-suomi, it’s a bloody interesting record if nothing else.

Once Bomb Voyage drops into its full-throttle kick you know you’re in for a treat. Possibly the best intro to a track of its style, it winds its way up to a fat peak before taking about three attempts to drop into mayhem. And, what’s key here, is that it’s mayhem with soul. There’s oodles of glitchoid changes, oodles of false starts… in short bloody good party music that’ll have you smiling while your legs kick up not inconsiderable dust.

Noize R Us does more or less what it says on the tin – shreikingly original, the morphing bottomend makes a weirdly adorable backbone for all manner of clops and chops over the top. Freak When See’s ups the stake once again, we’re talking seriously deranged music here. The changes and shuffles are what makes this work for me – you can listen to it, or you can dance to it, or you can do both. It pulls you every which way, and that’s not an exaggeration.

The Nord’s Got A Virus is lethal. It’s manic and moody, in short an utter bitch of a tune. It breaks to brief silence, then says “the following programme is intended for mature audiences”, before crashing headlong into one of the tastiest, nastiest runs i can recall. Japanica (Osaka Style) does a great job of scaring children, which (let’s face it) we all need from time to time. It drops into a nice, restrained section for the end, and not before time – given more room to breathe, the layers of sounds REL has used come into their own.

Cereal Killerz just sees the duo pull out even more energy. If you’re just going to check out one sample on Saiko for this release then make it this one – the changes, power and humour-laden thunk are all present and very much correct. Do Not Fuck With The Chuck shows that psytrance can still be interesting. Easing in and out of quantized shufflage, the energy is more measured and steady here, proving that these guys are just as good as sonic foreplay as they are at sonic hard forced anal. Back In Business is a little more user-friendly, but only a little. The squelch is deeper, the overall sound dubbier, but don’t worry it still kicks serious ass.

Finally The Clone-X Effect eases off the pedal a little more, more changes than Iron Maiden at their peak, and a couple of surprises to check you’re listening. At the end of the day, this is definitely interesting: truly psychedelic music should be for the head as well as the feet - would Eskimo kindly take note? My only gripe on this is that more variety wouldn’t have gone amiss. They prove they’re deft at this type of music; then they prove it again, and then again, and then again.

Some breaksy or electro-tinged tunes would have made this downright essential. As it is, it’s one of the better artist albums within its style, but it doesn’t necessarily satisfy in every regard.

7