Sultan Bathery have appeared on various splits and EPs before, and now at last we have their self-titled debut long player. I only mention this because usually bands that throw this much psychedelic fuzz into their music tend to get a little stale and run out of ideas by the end of the record’s running time. Luckily this is not the case with these Italian garage rock enthusiasts. It’s only on the very final song ‘So Blue’ that they fail to deliver in my eyes and that’s not because the ideas have run out, but due to the fact that the pop is too well, er… pop for my tastes. It is dangerously etching its way towards Babyshambles territory or something equally as horrible.
But I can forgive.
Why? Because ‘So Blue’ aside, the record is an absolute delight; essentially, if you scrape away the fuzz and the reverb that the vocals are comfortably saturated in you are left with a tidy guitar pop record. But with these added ingredients, plus a splash of vintage Black Sabbath to beef up the backline, tracks such as ‘Dead Leaves’ and ‘Mirror’ have a vaguely sinister overtone that make me want to dance and headbang at the same time. Not a pretty sight, trust me.
Repeat listens? Yeah, it just gets better and better. The slower tracks like ‘Flowers of Evil’ and ‘Nightmare One’ bed themselves in your brain and refuse to leave plus. It may be brief, but the sound from the guitar on the aforementioned track’s five note solo is simply delicious in its can’t be bothered slacker delivery.
Fuzz on.
I was originally commisioned by Pennyblackmusic to do this review.
lostinrock 