Double-guitar Austrian four-piece BeenObscene make their Elektrohasch debut with The Magic Table Dance, an album that finds the band unpretentiously duna-jamming their way through eight organic tracks of Euro-fuzz reminiscent at times of earliest Natas and keeping a spontaneous feel despite being mostly led by the riffs. The album starts instrumentally, and listening to it, it wouldn’t have surprised me had all of The Magic Table Dance been entirely sans vocals, as the flow of the five-minute opening title cut is so easy that, on the first time through, you might just assume the tracks that follow are as well. It’s most of the way through the second song, “Uniform,” before guitarist Thomas Nachtigal sings at all, and though he’s joined on the record by a number of guest performers, BeenObscene’s first offering feels more focused on the music. Given some of the grooves they elicit, that’s not a complaint.

“Come Over,” which follows the start-stop riffing of “Uniform,” is the first of several tracks on which drummer Robert Schoosleitner really makes his presence known, keeping the presentation classy under the guitar grooves of Nachtigal and fellow guitarist Peter Kreyci with popping snare hits that add a jazz feel to what many other percussionists would probably straight-ahead on the hi-hat. He and bassist Philipp Zezula show off some angularity on the shorter, instrumental “Freakin’ Rabbit,” lending the track a feel similar to what Swedish fuzz-mongers Asteroid did on their second album. The Magic Table Dance feels like a quick mover by the time you get to “Impressions,” where Orange-hued riffage meets more traditional stoner structures offset by snare ghost-notes from Schootleitner, but the 14-minute “Demons” changes the feel of the album entirely, showing BeenObscene, in addition to being able to jam harmless and charming tunes out with the best of them, can also affect some serious epic songwriting.

The song is undoubtedly the strongest performance from Nachtigal and Kreyci, who give some echoes of Colour Haze in the middle after two smaller builds lead to a third, and Zezula and Schoosleitner follow close behind as lines about watching people change casually remind of Tool’s “Disposition” despite sharing almost nothing musically in common. “Demons” ends on a soothing note, again in the tradition of Natas’ Delmar, and leads into the 1:28 instrumental “Ring Ring,” which is something of a misstep in terms of vibe. It feels like it was included at the last minute to break up the space between “Demons” and the closer “How it Feels,” and maybe to snap the audience out of the trance the preceding track had them in, but hearing the album, I don’t want in the least to be snapped out of it. It’s short, and if you’re going to have a mistake track on there, make it under a minute and a half, but it does at least momentarily throw off The Magic Table Dance, giving the closer an unfortunate lead-in, whereas I feel like had BeenObscene gone right from “Demons” into “How it Feels,” I wouldn’t have missed a beat listening and the otherwise excellent flow of the album would be intact throughout.

At a little over eight minutes and not featuring quite as much back and forth between heavier riffs and noodle-based jams, “How it Feels” seems the most mature track BeenObscene has on offer, though I don’t think I’d pick it as the highlight over “Demons.” Another memorable delivery from Nachtigal bodes well for vocal development to come, and the build throughout is well pulled off by all four members, ending The Magic Table Dance on as strong a note as one could possibly ask. It’s probably not going to change your life if the likes of Colour Haze, Natas or any number of the newer class of desert rocking acts has graced your ears, but BeenObscene have a decent chemistry between them and if you’re looking for something that rocks without being heavy just for the sake of being heavy, there should be enough intricacy in The Magic Table Dance to hold your attention without any problem.

BeenObscene on MySpace

Elektrohasch Schallplatten

Tags: Austria, BeenObscene, Elektrohasch, Salzburg

This entry was posted on Monday, October 18th, 2010 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.