Thanks goes out to Mike “ZodiacLung” Hanson of the renowned Doomed to be Stoned in a Sludge Swamp blog for suggesting I take a couple minutes to check out German heavy psych rockers Buddha Sentenza. After downloading their free demo, Mode 0909, I’m increasingly glad I did.

Although its fancy print-and-fold artwork makes me long for the days of simple, easy-to-shelve jewel cases, more importantly, Mode 0909 finds the newborn (in 2008) five-piece getting down to synth-laden psychedelic explorations not necessarily in the ’70s tradition, but sounding more like an amalgamation of Colour Haze and Brant Bjork. They go so far as to credit a vocalist on their MySpace, but none of their eight demo tracks seem to feature any singing. Maybe “General Punishment” hadn’t joined Buddha Sentenza yet when they recorded.

It can’t be easy for a new band starting out in Germany to play the kind of music Buddha Sentenza does, since anyone who knows even slightly what they’re talking about is immediately going to drop a Colour Haze comparison on them — as I did above — as if doing so is a complete explanation of their sound (every sludge band who’s been compared to Eyehategod should know what I’m talking about). If there’s one thing that sets Buddha Sentenza apart from the band who increasingly are coming to define their generation of European heavy psychedelia, aside from influence, it’s the level of activity. While Colour Haze these days seem to ride each note to its very end in a relaxingly hypnotic fashion, Buddha Sentenza don’t shy away from getting down to the business of rocking. Shorter tracks like “Noise from the Death Factory” and “White Crystal Party” keep an excited feel about them, and even the eight-minute “Kehakeeltokool” manages a rousing pace as it wanders in the general direction of structure.

Buddha Sentenza have some growing to do, but for now, they’re a trip, and in a “can’t beat the price” free demo-type situation, Mode 0909 is a worthy start from a band who hopefully we’ll be hearing from again soon.

Click here to download Buddha Sentenza, Mode 0909

Tags: Buddha Sentenza, Germany, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:53 am and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.