If at all possible, try to ignore the astonishingly poor name of thisband. Try also to set aside your (certainly justified) misgivings aboutthe album's inaccurate Grateful Dead reference for a title. Now, if itisn't too much to ask after you've done the aforementioned superhumanfeats (and I must congratulate you if your mind remains at all open,but the true test is yet to come, as you'll soon see), please look pastthe fact that the first song on this CD is titled (are you ready?),"Buckle Up Scully, I Believe Chuck Here is About to Take Us on a Rideto the Abnormal". Still there? Goodness gracious. What on earth couldhave prompted this actually-quite-good Greek quartet to make so manyastoundingly poor naming choices is truly beyond my ken. Their albumdeserves better, because it is worth listening to. Titles, after all,are secondary to the music, but one must wonder about why a band wouldwant to represent themselves so. The entirely instrumental group seems to have synthesized elements ofold 4AD records with that slow n'heavy Godspeed You Black Emperor! rockdirge. Even if the drums are played by an actual person (I don't knowif they are or not), they have that flat quality most peculiar to the1980s Cocteau Twins drum machine. The ghosts of Angelo Badalamentescores lurk in the reverb-soaked guitar and heavy Godspeed!-like dramatakes the form of one- or two-chord songs that meander over ten minutestretches for maximum "epic" effect. In fact, this band wears theirinfluences so opaquely that they go beyond being simply derivative, andcome out as... really quite nice. They add a noisy rock element attimes, riding that one chord until it grows louder and louder and feedsback over a steady, simple 4/4 beat. And even though gloomy gothicbombast hangs over all the tunes, it's never off-putting. "What a Long,Strange Journey" is a fine album... but please please tell me, what'sthe Grateful Dead got to do with it? Look for these at their website or email
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