THE SPACELORDS: Nectar Of The Gods (PROGRESSIVE ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

We've been following The Spacelords for a long time, at least since 'Synapse' in 2014, when we discovered them thanks to Electric Moon, with whom they shared drummer Marcus Schnitzler for several years. We've seen it grow, progress and improve like a (very) good wine to become what it is today, one of the masters of typically german space rock and perhaps even the most jubilant of them all. So much so, in fact, that comparisons with their predecessor Electric Moon have ended up working in their favour, which is no mean feat.

Less than two years after 'Unknown Species', The Spacelords invite us to follow them on a trip that smells of mushrooms, hallucinogenic of course. There's no (r)evolution to be expected from this seventh album, which simply digs the same furrow as its predecessors, all roundness but firmly planted in the ground by a massive rhythm section. No one will complain, especially as the Germans knit together these mellow and incredibly invigorating artificial paradises with their inspiration still at attention.

Like their spiritual brother Sula Bassana, they have that rare ability to make you feel good when you listen to them. To be swept away by their unctuous psychedelic rock is to abandon yourself in a protective cocoon. In fact, comfortable and undulating, "Nectar Of The Gods" is the best remedy for the winter blues. But above all, it's the most effective way to travel, to leave behind a grim everyday life for a faraway place. The album's opening track, which gives its title to the album, takes the pilgrim on the road to Ravi Shankar, with its sitar and tribal percussion. Gorged with a cozy seed, Matthias Wettstein's neck releases a myriad of hypnotic sonorities that caress the thick foundation laid by Marcus Schnitzler's mammoth drums.

After this nine-minute orgasm, 'Endorphine High' takes the journey into more delicate and suave territory, still guided by the silky ether of the six-string. On 'Mindscapes', the lines become harder but no less haunting, sculpted by a rhythmic pattern that eats up all the space, even as the guitar opens its usual psychedelic floodgates. At almost fifteen minutes long, 'Lost Sounds Of Lemuria' closes on a stratospheric note, an invitation to the stars. The tempo is slow, the ambience wispy, with bucolic synthesizers and a wet, seventies-esque organ.

"Nectar Of The Gods" is an irresistible beverage of instrumental psychedelic rock concocted by The Spacelords, more than ever the bosses of the genre. - Official website

THE SPACELORDS

NECTAR OF THE GODS

AUTRE LABEL

PROGRESSIVE ROCK