ninehertz

Yeah that title is ironic, but it's pretty funny too...

In the words of the band: "It is a tongue-in-cheek dig at our usual classification as stoner rock and what the term has come to represent. The idea is to create our own definition of 'stoner rock' by creating an album so utterly stoned and repetitive to be a million miles away from the usual definition.

"Those who know Bong already will get both the humour and the philosophical redefinition... those who don't know us will either get it when they listen or will never understand Bong at all."

Bong have always been an incredibly dense band and this release is no exception. With the first of two tracks here Out of the Aeons come walls, there really is no other word, of riff to begin with and there's eastern tinges floating in the background that give it more of an avant-drone sound. Think the incredible Asva or the Master Musicians of Bukkake, all waves of volume and lethargic drums.

There's a spoken word section at around twenty minutes in that sounds for all the world like a B-Movie voiceover of an all-seeing alien conciousness and the droning only makes it seem more so. It's on the bounds of ridiculousness to be fair but I suspect that's the intention. Live, Bong have always split audiences. Either people drift off into a shamanic volume orgasm or they slink off to have a smoke. If they deign to play this one, then they will be receiving exactly the same split as usual. Played at tectonic plate-moving volumes this could well open your third eye, but will completely alienate others.

Second track Polaris is almost a mirror image, but a mirror in which you see how you will look when you are old, when your hair is grey, your eyes are the size of currants and your skin resembles a soggy dishcloth. There's some chanting towards the end which also gives it the feel of an epic Ben Hur-a-like B-Movie, which I can dig.

If you have the patience, why not get into Stoner Rock? (This sentence was intended to make no sense).

We have been notified that the tracklisting on the final CD appears the other way round with the album opening with 'Polaris' with 'Out Of The Aeons' as track two.