Revelation
19 May 2014
A
3.5 stars out of 5
Revelation is San
Francisco-spawned, Berlin-based The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s thirteenth
studio LP. It’s another psychedelic trip down ‘60s memory lane, though one with
many detours and digressions through other equally drug-influenced eras of pop
music, specifically the electronica of the ‘90s. This is not to say that Revelation has much in common with Dig Your Own Hole or Music for the Jilted Generation; rather,
the spirit of the genre and its roots in the Madchester scene of the late ‘80s
is what’s being invoked here, with tracks like “Duck and Cover,” “Memorymix”
and “Fist Full of Bees” being prime examples.
The other half of the record is stuck in the ‘60s. While The
Rolling Stones are still a towering influence over leader Anton Newcombe’s
work, Bob Dylan’s spirit (okay, I know the man’s technically not dead) makes an
appearance on Revelation as well. “Food
for Clouds” is “All Along the Watchtower” with horns and reverb. “Second
Sighting” is a flower child folk ballad, perhaps of the kind that would have morphed
into a Canterbury-esque prog epic retelling some ancient druid legend (not a
bad thing—I’d buy that) had Newcombe & Co. been actually out of diapers back
when Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers had been dedicating that sort of thing to
magnetic tape.
Revelation sees
BJM continue to roll along at a good pace, now almost twenty-five years into
their careers. Though now living in Germany
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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