Tell the hippies come back and be crushed to dust! This is easily BardoPond's best album and maybe the most dazzling recording I've heard in adecade or so! Straight out of the flimsy artwork bereft plasticenvelope on its first wonderful spin even their previous run ofoutstanding vented trip-fuck drone-rockers hadn't quite prepared me forsuch fine honed intensity and sheer beauty. Bardo Pond have alwaysliked their psychedelic stew very heavy and deeply hypnotic. These sixsongs take a trip through beautiful cosmic mindfuck sex energy and outspinning around stars, dissolving into pure light. If you want headexpanding drone rock with mammoth slow guitar overkill, this is theplace to find it. I didn't think they'd ever be able to surpass theirprevious highpoint Set and Setting,but they have and then some. The recording is sharper but that doesn'tdetract from the heady riff brew, just fires it to harder glory. Whereonce they were sludgey they now burn clear and bright with no sops tovapid commerciality. Two guitars overdriven with effects trace patternson the sun. Isobel Sollenberger sings beguilingly of every man being astar which sounds trite on the screen but fits the music perfectly.There is a deceptive lull when one of the guys, probably bassist ClintTakeda, takes a mumbling stroll through "Walking Clouds" in a superiortake on the kind of psych-folk Flying Saucer Attack used to excel at.When the final swirling megablast of "Night of Frogs" atomizes solarrevolution time, it's obvious that Bardo Pond have penetrated so farbeyond the mundane now that there isn't any turning back. Just at thepoint of collapse, about to t(r)ip over into infinity, On the Ellipseis such a fitting title—this would be a great soundtrack to leaving theplanet, dropping out forever.Mogwai have proclaimed them theirfavourite band, but Bardo Pond are universes beyond. The word is thatthey're going to be touring Europe with Jackie-OMotherfucker and Threnody Ensemble in the Autumn. Maybe it'll be timeto hit the road and never come back. Read More
