SOUVARIS
A Hat
(Gringo)

DEFCON 4
The Bad Road
(Supernova)

HAIL! HORNET
S/T
(Dwell)

EVOKEN
A Caress of the Void
(I Hate)

NORTHERN LIBERTIES
Ghost Mind Electricity
(Badmaster)

GEZOLEEN
Black Spaces Between Stars 

(Acerbic Noise Development)

LARKIN
Every Day Begs the Question

(Mother Should Know)

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And once there was Sleep (no band could have provided a more apt soundtrack to the cat-skinning scene of Harmony Korine’s nightmarish bizarro film Gummo); but as the soon to be mythic band came, rocked like two souls, signed to a major, recorded a monolithic and epic one-movement masterpiece, rocked about three souls, disbanded with zero fanfare.  Nowadays, the world has the more conventional (but not for that less powerful) High On Fire, and the less standard and full on guitar-less OM. Formed by two-thirds of the California legends, OM only kind of picks up where Jerusalem (this is the monolithic and epic one-movement masterpiece I talked about like four lines above) left. For starters, there is no guitar listed here, which by the stoner Gods standards would have been unthinkable and nothing short of an idiotic idea and for enders OM’s trade is submerged in more calmed and trance-like waters. 

Conference of the Birds concentrates all its resources in two tracks; “At Giza” which lasts 15 minutes and 55 seconds and threatens to hypnotize you with a come-join-the-cult chanty vibe and “Flight of the Eagle” which lasts only 17 minutes and 27 seconds and has a more advanced already-in-the-cult-let’s-get-ready-for-the-mass-suicide-feeling.  Both are quite charming, but what is more important is the way in which vocalist and bassist Al Cisneros flexes his digits; the thick vibe of his Rickenbaker leaves no room for a six-stringer’s bullcrap.  Those who might have had the luck of enjoying Sleep’s b/w video for “Dragonaut” might have had a tantric moment when at the end Matt Pike’s guitar vanishes and as the song calms, all that is left is the bass and the jamming drums of Chris Hakius. Right there, the mighty jamming power of these two musicians was in clear evidence. Like Jerusalem, Conference of the Birds will most likely go largely unnoticed. For a band to issue an album comprised of two songs that together run a little over 32 minutes tells you that they really do not give a flying turd about the conventionalities of rock. It’s almost like they are screaming “please don’t buy the album”, it’s almost like an unintended elitist statement. Obviously, everyone is invited, but not many may want to come. 

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