For a band that makes intensely menacing music, the Black Angels are in a pretty comfortable position. The five-piece has kept the dark psychedelia fire burning over four LPs and as many EPs since forming nearly 15 years ago. The Angels are also the founders of Levitation, the Austin-based music festival that draws like-minded weirdos to their hometown and unites multiple generations of rockers. After a few albums that snuck in chiming guitars and big melodic hooks, Death Song marks a return to the churning sounds of the band’s early releases.
The Black Angels have always had a knack for blurring the line between spiraling psych/garage and blunt-edged hard rock, and they waste no time in showing off that skill on opening cut “Currency.” The band addresses political, societal and interpersonal relationships through a lens warped by human malevolence. If you think that’s heavy stuff, wait until you get to the LP’s thrilling middle section, where the springy “I Dreamt” gives way to the pulsating “Medicine.” It’s undeniably fun to hear the band lock into a groove, as it does on “Grab As Much (As You Can)” and “Death March,” but this glee is tempered by doomy drones and blistering guitar noise. To borrow John Peel’s oft-quoted quip about the Fall, the Black Angels are one of those “always different, always the same” kinds of bands. Death Song isn’t a wild step in any new direction but instead a grindstone-polished showcase of what the group does best.
—Eric Schuman
