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Review & Full Album Stream: Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember, Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember

Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember

[Click play above to stream the self-titled debut from Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember. It’s out Sept. 6 on Cardinal Fuzz.]

Sweet psychedelic salvation like that on offer throughout Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember‘s self-titled debut is rare. It’s rare, period. Never mind rare for a first album. Or rare for a first album as a 2LP. Rare. Picture yourself in a boat on a river, except the boat is a dragon and the river is lava and you’re not so much you as some kind of mix between Dennis Hopper and Gimli from Lord of the Rings. The Cardiff-based six-piece — listed as Luke, Gaz, Grant, Ropey, Tim, and Owen, and that’s fine — have some semblance of consciousness at work throughout the fully-blazed 66-minute offering, but it is the stuff of expanded minds. The low-end fuzz of “Walk with the King” and motorik thrust accompanying, the mood-setting drift in LP1 intro “Strange Flotsam on the Rising Tide” and the manner in which each platter’s second side — that’s B and D for those playing along at home — is consumed by a massive sprawl, be it the just-under-17-minute glory of “Great Vibrating Seasons” or the multi-movement build into cacophony that precedes the quiet finish of “Sun God Grave Goods,” the 14:31 capper for Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember as a whole.

These cuts represent a pinnacle — and one from which “Walk with the King” (12:38) and post-intro opener “Sub-Sonic Dreamer” (9:31) aren’t far off, by the way — but anywhere the band goes, freakitude follows like some kind of mushroom-added cultist, be it the blowout of “Sub-Sonic Dreamer,” the relatively straightforward “Surely They Know?” with its maddening and catchy hook, or the we’re-just-gonna-take-four-and-a-half-minutes-and-commune-with-the-universe drone of the penultimate “From the One Comes the Many,” which is missing only a warning that too much listening will expose the lizard people. All of these come together to make a killer set of charge-up, melt-down and burn-baby-burn, the band easing and oozing their way through subdued float and full-on warp drive push with an ease that belies it being their debut and every bit earns the yellow and black starkness of the cover that adorns it.

And just in case the point hasn’t been made, it’s gorgeous. Gorgeous and raw and expansive, sun-baked in gazing style but never trying to be anywhere or anything it’s not. Cohesion doesn’t just happen in the moments of solidified verses, either. One can hear it in the age-of-Aquarius chants of “Strange Flotsam on the Rising Tide” and subsequent post-The Heads blower guitar in the early going and latter reaches of “Sub-Sonic Dreamer,” the interplay of harmonica and dreamy jazz guitar in the midsection of “Sun God Grave Goods” and the various washes of synth between them. To be sure, Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember are functioning with a third-eye-open creative sensibility, but it’s worth emphasizing that these tracks aren’t just jams and that there’s a plan at work. “Sub-Sonic Dreamer” and “Surely They Know?” emphasize this with priority on side A, but even the when-Hawkwind-met-Floyd triumphalism of “Great Vibrating Seasons” works with motion in mind beyond barebones exploration.

infinity forms of yellow remember far out

Nothing against that, you understand, but the direction Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember bring to the proceedings make them feel all the more like kosmiche gatekeepers, holding open fuzz-covered doors of perception so that all might pass through into the ocean of effects beyond. Vocals in harmony or at least melodic unison are no less of an instrument than anything else that beeps, boops, beats or strums, and the feeling of fullness in the mix does nothing to undercut the spaciousness of the entirety in which that fullness resides. The volume dynamic in “Great Vibrating Seasons” alone is worth the price both of your soul and international shipping, never mind the manner in which the song rips itself apart at the end to let an acoustic guitar and residual effects subtlety take the helm for the inevitable fadeout. You gotta be kidding me with this stuff. Who the hell are these guys and why the hell haven’t they put out a second record yet? Yeah, I know the first one isn’t out, but no way you can listen to “Walk with the King” or “From the One Comes the Many” and make the argument that linear time matters.

Tell a friend, space-children. Tell two friends. Make new friends and tell them too. Tell your cousin Chuck. There’s beauty in the universe and coffee in that nebula and neither will go un-harvested in the meditations and rush of Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember‘s Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember, and while the rest of the world such as it is debates who’s-who’s cool enough to be neo-this or that, you’ll know that the more important thing is that feeling of your existential being leaking out of your eyeballs in rainbow teardrops of joy as “Walk with the King” pushes over the line between oblivi-off and oblivi-on, propelled from one to the other by a snare that pops like neurons firing, flourish of keys and bass, bass, bass that holds filthy sway while at least seven or eight guitars shred themselves and whatever else happens in an engrossing swell that’s even kind enough to arrive with its own comedown leading into “From the One Comes the Many” and “Sun Gods Grave Goods,” which even with a side flip between them feel no less born for each other.

This is where it’s at. Make no mistake. I’m not saying it’s a one-band revolution, because it’s not trying to be, but for a band to come around on an initial release with such utter and unflinching mastery of these uncontrollable-seeming sounds is not something to be taken lightly. It’s to be taken heavily because it is thusly administered, with patience for patients and intensity when it needs it most to create that feeling of hitting escape velocity, these sweeping builds that every bit demand not just the second platter but the listener attention throughout it. I don’t know much about this band’s circumstances, if they’ll tour, if they’ll put out five records a year or never do anything else, but they’re beginning to dig into something special here. What I said at the outset was true. It’s rare. And if Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember in any way pay off the promise that this debut shows, then all who encounter them can only consider themselves lucky. Double LP? Shit. Make the next one a triple.

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