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audiObelisk: Men of Fortune Stream Debut Album Time Lovingly Bled in Full

Posted in audiObelisk on December 18th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

Next week, Illinois-based trio Men of Fortune will release their debut full-length, Time Lovingly Bled, on Bird Dialect Records, striking an intriguing balance between progressive heavy rock and psychedelic influences. Desert-style jamming may have been a starting point, but it becomes increasingly clear over the course of jumpy opener “Voices from the Void” — think Queens of the Stone Age on a hangout with glory-days Faith No More — which sets a linear standard that the rest of Time Lovingly Bled seems to follow, the path the record takes branching out from its crunchy starting point and, later, delving into tripped-out hypnosis that’s jarring only in how effective it is in not being jarring. These Men of Fortune — guitarist/engineer Joel Madigan, drummer Andrew Sledd and bassist Mike Willey — prove equally comfortable in jagged rhythmic push or smooth waveform drone, and though they’ve all done time in other bands, Men of Fortune seem quickly to be establishing their own sonic persona in these six tracks.

But for the penultimate drone-out “Nymphatic Meditation,” all of the cuts on Time Lovingly Bled top seven minutes long, and much of that time is given to builds and exploration, “Some Crystal Dawn” taking an immediately more circuitous route than the opener with a feedback-peppered stretch leading to post-rock ambience, gradually working its way toward an apex with echoing leads and progressive sway that revives the chorus. Patience becomes even more the theme with “The Passing Shame,” which moves fluidly through layered acoustics and electric guitars to an intricate payoff of its own that ends side A in large but not overblown fashion, some of the melody hinting at a ’90s influence that will further manifest in the Alice in Chains vibing that crops up in the vocals later on closer “Child of Earth.” Men of Fortune‘s real psychedelic breadth is saved for side B, with “Only Believers” being as clear a signal even digitally of a side-based shift in approach as one could ask.

Perhaps because of its more peaceful surroundings, the crescendo of “Only Believers” seems even larger as it unfolds, rich in low end and marked out by layers of effects noise behind the vocals. If at this point you fall into a trance and snap back to consciousness sometime into “Child of Earth,” it’s easy to argue that as being Men of Fortune‘s intent, “Nymphatic Meditation” lulls the listener into melodic atmospherics from which the finale emerges and builds more or less starting from the ground up into fuller-toned push at its halfway point, drawing a swirling culmination together from a deep-running ether, adding a last touch of progressive desert lead-work and finally deconstructing the whole thing so that only the noise remains. Particularly in its second half, it’s an immersive experience, and in honor of the LP coming out next week, I’m happy to be able to present it on the player below, followed by some more info courtesy of Bird Dialect. Enjoy:

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From the terrestrial base of Peoria, Illinois, Men of Fortune craft galactic battle hymns for the next millennium. Smokey and dense, their debut full-length is a hypnotic sojourn through rock, prog and psychedelia that’s both cosmic and muscular, ethereality tethered to the beating heart at the center of all. Marrying feral odes and dark lullabies, it’s a seduction consummated on wax as a sacrament for your own astral travels.

With bassist Mike Willey joining the rhythmic force of Andrew Sledd and trance-inducing riffs of Joel Madigan, Men of Fortune have become the power trio they always were. An epic passage of spirit, Time Lovingly Bled launches heavy cosmic jams far from the safety of Earth, but its weightless freefall never wears out its welcome.

Recorded by Joel Madigan at Sound of Mind in Peoria, IL. Mixed by Sanford Parker at Hypercube in Chicago, IL. Mastered at Prairie Cat Mastering in Belvidere, IL.

Men of Fortune on Thee Facebooks

Time Lovingly Bled at Bird Dialect Records

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