This nine-member group -- which includes two drummers and four guitarists -- often focuses heavily on dark, amphetamine-fueled
hard rock
skree and titanic singular-riff freakouts (the jagged, sawtooth guitars of
the Velvet Underground
's
"Sister Ray"
seem to be a huge influence). What's surprising, however, is that
Rise and Fall
kicks off and nearly reaches its apogee with the first track,
"Jam of the Witches,"
which clocks in at nearly 15 minutes (and more than twice the length of a similarly titled
"Jam of the Warlocks"
from their eponymous
Bomp
EP). This first-take troglodyte
rock
juggernaut seems like it might be out of place in the sequence, but what follows isn't even remotely anti-climatic. In fact, there are a few surprises to put things back on track, including a handful of stonier
ballads
that wouldn't have sounded too out of place on any
Pink Floyd
album pre-
Dark Side of the Moon
.
"House of Glass,"
one of leader/guitarist
Bobby Hecksher
's better vocal efforts, is a pastoral acoustic-strummed reverie (think
David Gilmour
"Fat Old Sun"
from
Atom Heart Mother
or those shambolic
country-rock
instros that
contributed to the
Zabriskie Point
soundtrack). A cleaner re-recording of
"Song for Nico"
(a rougher version appears on the band's EP) has a fuzz-soaked
"Heroin"
-esque vibe and comes off as a reverent tribute to the enigmatic chanteuse. A swaying stoner's
waltz
,
"Motorcycles,"
lopes along nicely too. Then, after a surreptitious chunk of dead space amid a bit of guitar tuning and crowd chatter, a final lengthy jam (
"Heavy Bomber"
) kicks in, but the spacier
Spiritualized
-sounding instro ultimately drifts along without going anywhere. The last track listed on the tray card,
"Laser Beam,"
doesn't actually appear on the CD. Surely it's
Hecksher
's amusing way of perplexing anyone who attempts to find it buried somewhere. All in all,
the Warlocks
' first full-length is a solid effort from one of L.A.'s best live acts. After this release,
signed with the
Birdman
record label. ~ Bryan Thomas