The Higher Craft's debut album 'Magic Box' takes influences from the free form aesthetic and ideals of the more experimental psyche bands of the sixties and adds crisper rythmns along with many more influences from down the years to give you a thoroughly up to date acid rock experience. In fact what they have done is take some of the more 'limp' aspects of their bedrock influence out and replaced it with a harder edged sound that keeps the music in the present rather than wallowing exclusively in the past, which is fine if you just want to replicate the sound of your favorite artist, but they stood out, because they were striving to create something new and different at the time and that is how music progresses.
'The Time Has Come', the album's opener is a pretty forceful and driving song that tips a hat to Jefferson Airplane whilst adding cut and paste sound collages and nailing it all to a pretty insistent groove.
'Lazy Daisy' cracks along at a fair pace and sounds like a song that would go down well at a gig or festival were it's pounding rythmn would motivate an audience with no problem at all.
'Poetic Justice' is a loose, medium paced, groove based,free from jam type piece that floats along and develops very slowly over the course of it's nine plus minutes.
'Planet Clairvoyant' lifts the riff from 'Peter Gunn' and takes it on a space rock adventure
'I Do The Visions' could be musically described as Krautrock colliding with a bit of late period Talk Talk minimalism
'Infinite Blue' utilises a very familiar guitar motif and riffs on it relentlessly, building up and breaking down again for it's four minute duration
'New Moon'is a slow paced trance like number that is reminiscent of early songs by The Verve with it's ambiance and majestic atmospherics
'Senorita'#
'White Rabbit' is a modern take on the Airplane classic.
by: Kevin Wallbank (UK)
M100 and Honeymoon On Mars
09-10-08
** See "The Higher Craft" on Psychedelic Central under.. experimental & other.
