Black Bow Records/ Burning World (Release date – 24th February 2014)
Bast are a London based trio who are here to challenge your musical senses. The album may only contain five tracks but it clocks in at 47 minutes long with each track taking you on a black, doom laden journey. You will notice I have used the word tracks rather than songs, this is because what Bast have created here are not songs in the popular sense, they are more like soundscapes to accompany a trip into the mind’s darkest recesses.
The overwhelming feature of this album is the tsunami of lowdown bass which sweeps through each number, relentlessly vibrating your speakers and pulverising your cranium. Give this album to a ned with a pumped up sound system in his Corsa and the car would shake itself to destruction within seconds! As well as the epic bass all tracks also feature rhythmic, almost tribal, drumming and low guttural vocals which are so far back in the mix it sounds as though vocalist, Craig Bryant, was locked out the studio and had to sing through the wall.
Possibly the most challenging track on the album is the instrumental ‘Psychonauts’ which clocks in at almost 12 minutes. There is something almost ethereal about the noise the guys create, hypnotic and mesmerising. If the druids at the opening of the newly built Stonehenge had guitars and amps to hand they may well have made a similar sound.
Heavy and unrelenting, Bast will make you question your views of what music is and should be. Whether you are willing to face that challenge is up to you, to be honest I nearly bailed out early on, but persevere and you will find a new listening experience, it is then up to you to decide if this is genius or unlistenable. If you have cause to phone the pits of Hell this may well be the ‘hold‘ music.
***1/2
David Wilson
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
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