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Sacred (Vinyl)
"When it comes to the range of distinctive fuzz tones associated with stoner/desert rock, Josh Homme of Kyuss has to be credited as the most important early innovator. But no one since has focused in on his guitar tones and doggedly perfected them year after year, album after album, more than Stefan Koglek of Colour Haze. With fourteen albums released over 27 years, he’s built note by note, riff by riff, a breathtaking cathedral of guitar worship. And what better way to pray at the altar of fuzz than an album called Sacred?
Such a title could easily imply a bout of religious fervor filled with grandiose arrangements with an orchestral choir of angelic voices and prog fantasies weighed down in awkward neo-classical pretentions. Koglek has dabbled with some of those elements on To The Highest Gods We Know (2014) and In Her Garden (2017) but did so tastefully and stayed in the sane lane.
There are remnants of those experiments with subtle appearances of mellotron and a smattering of classical instruments. But the biggest surprise here is that this might be the heaviest Colour Haze album since Ewige Blumenkraft (2001)! “Turquoise” kicks off the album in fairly typical fashion, easing in with some softer guitar picking augmented by what might be a Hammond organ, then some analog synth notes tossed on top of the increasingly loud guitar like pixy dust. The instrumental track crescendos with a not-quite all-out roar in a satisfying manner that could have fit on some of the most popular albums from the mid-2000s. But then “Goldmine” kicks off with a gritty, grungy riff that’s rawer than anything I’ve heard from the band in years, and it doesn’t let up for most of it’s concise 4:35 duration, chugging along with a newfound ferocity. “Ideologigi” is the album’s longest track at 8:58, relatively brief compared to past sprawling jams that neared the twenty minute mark. This one achieve a perfect balance of Koglek’s celestial chimes with more pounding riffs, with his wailing vocals exuding more passion and anger than we’ve heard in years.
“Avatar” is a cool tune that features a staccato rhythm embellished by an arpeggio on each riff cycle, then an Eastern melody on a keyboard, the song eventually escorted back to Earth with more crunchy riffs. “1.5 Degrees” feels like an intermission with it’s acoustic picking and tick-tocking percussion, but it’s just a minute shorter than the previous track, and ends again with probably the grungiest, nastiest sounding guitar tones the band has messed with since the 90s. A mellotron figures higher in the mix in “See the Fools,” but the arrangement is simple compared to some of the band’s recent psych prog forays, focusing on the emotional feel. “In All You Are” concludes the album with another climax with stirring melodies, more impassioned singing, evoking a more uplifting feel, and the band playing their asses off. This is really great, another standout in a catalog full of them.
On the Elektrohasch site it says, “I can say this time we created a little masterpiece. We hope it will bring you a lot of joy and good energies – especially in these times.” I’m definitely feeling the joy. I really liked We Are, which they unceremoniously released at the very end of December of 2019, so I counted it in my 2020 list, and then for some reason a remastered version came out the next year. It’s too early to decide just yet, but I do think Sacred is good enough to rub shoulders with Colour Haze (2004) and Tempel (2006). All (2008) remains my favorite for it’s more structured hints at psych pop, which I’d still love to see them pursue further. There’s a lot of history with those albums, so it’s hard to compare, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all for a newcomer to the entire catalog to pick this latest as a favorite, making it an ideal entrypoint. Welcome to the church of fuzz!" - Fastn 'n' Bulbous