Black Bombaim – Zones Of Resident Bodies
It’s been a while since we last checked in on instrumental behemoths Black Bombaim. In between 2014’s aptly titled Far Out LP and now, the Portuguese band have let fly various like-minded splits, but now, with Zones Of Resident Bodies, they’re squarely back on their own terms … as well as those of a few newcomers. Experimenting with the band’s trademark heavy stoner-psych by working with no less than three electronic composers (Jonathan Saldanha, Luís Fernandes, Pedro Augusto) in no less than three non-studio recording environments (most interestingly a “reverberation room” within an engineering university), the results on ZoRB are, all the same, perhaps not what might have been expected.
Varying from the completely unchanged to the electronically informed to a hugely out-there exploration of noise vs. silence, there’s much to commend and even more to consume as the run-time weighs in well over the hour-mark. Much of this is due to the colossal title track, one of the slowest yet heaviest hitters this side of the Sun, and which sprawls over 20 minutes in length. With the solemnity of some off-world ossuary, spartan drum-and-doom blasts ring out from the void, a powerful vacuum sucking all life from light years around into an immeasurably dense centre. Simmering guitar tension slowly strings some cohesion between these monolithic pillars of sound, tenebrous surf tones echoing like electromagnetic pulsars across blank space as a metronomic tick invents time to track the array of fizzing particles caught in the pull. E-goddamn-ventually (but nonetheless impressively) Black Bombaim then give in to the urge to give it both barrels, latterly unleashing a taut barrage of atmospheric hard-psych rhythms. Those keen on instant gratification would do well to abandon all hope before entering here.
Five other lengthy cuts also feature, those with dated titles perhaps most familiar to established fans as the band get loose and stare each other down during grumbling, neck-popping grooves and other heavy space-jams. At the other end of the spectrum however, “Three Axes” houses a muscular ripple of percussion that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gothic post-punk epic and its comparatively serene guitar dappling flows in undulating waves to massage the mind and set the heart racing simultaneously. Certain experiments go forth to invent what the word needs, and others thrust a wild product onto an unsuspecting few just to gauge their response. ZoRB is resolutely in the latter camp and all the better for it.
~Zones Of Resident Bodies is released 18th March 2019 via the collaborative efforts of Cardinal Fuzz and Lovers & Lollipops.~