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Review & Full Album Stream: Mr. Bison, Holy Oak

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on May 18th, 2018 by JJ Koczan

mr bison holy oak

[Click here to stream Holy Oak by Mr. Bison in full. Album is out May 25 on Subsound Records.]

The number of dudes in Mr. Bison? Three. The number of those same dudes named Matteo? Three. The number album their new one, Holy Oak is in their discography? Three. The number of bassists who appear on that same record? None. Number of times you’re going to be responsible for knowing these numbers? Zero, because by the time the Pisa-based sans-bass three-piece of guitarist/vocalists Matteo Barsacchi, Matteo Sciocchetto and drummer/vocalist Matteo D’Ignazi are about two songs in — to the total nine; because numbers — the sweet fuzz, classic style fuzz and periodic excursions into psychedelic space are going to melt the math away anyhow.

Mr. Bison, who release Holy Oak as their second offering through Subsound Records behind 2016’s Asteroid, hone in on the pivotal spirit of modern desert rock. There’s some element of push in songs like “Heavy Rain,” but they’re just as likely to spend their time spreading out an open atmosphere. Consider European acts of lore like Sgt. Sunshine and Lowrider, fellow Italians OJM, or American bands like Solace for a cut like “Earth Breath,” or even up and coming practitioners like Steak. Mr. Bison belong to this category of purveyors. Their third album is mature and aware of the moves it’s making between louder, more driving material and its more subdued places, and the Matteos effectively play different sides off each other both within songs — the 7:30 centerpiece title-track walks by and waves — and in the transition between them as well.

Like many acts who operate without a bass, their claim is that the guitar tones make up for it. And true enough, any band can tune lower to make up for the lacking thicker strings if they’re so inclined, but to think of the legacy of great heavy rock loadbearers — from Geezer Butler through Scott Reeder and so on — and it would seem to be not even so much the tone as the dynamic they’re denying themselves. They compensate by weaving different guitar parts in and around each other, and in so doing craft something that, admittedly, is more their own than it would be if they were a simple guitar/bass/drum configuration. Some of it is a familiar lead/rhythm dynamic, but “The Bark” operates tonally like a battle of dueling Hendrixes, and the results make for a legitimately exciting listen.

This is something that a band three records in can do much more effectively than a band making their debut, but it’s admirable nonetheless, and from the mid-paced groove of opener “Roots” and the blown-out shuffle swagger of “Sacred Deal” — there may not be any bass, but I’d swear I hear an organ — onward, Mr. Bison retain fervent control over their transitions and the fluidity of Holy Oak as a whole. At 46 minutes, it does not feel like a minor undertaking, but neither is it redundant, as “Heavy Rain” breathes ambient life into the initial salvo and “Earth Breath” contrasts with more straightforward edge and riffing. The appropriate metaphor would be to say these two sides are doing battle, but it’s more like they’re both fighting toward the same end than fighting each other. In the post-Black Rainbows sphere of Italian heavy, Mr. Bison make a place for themselves alongside acts like Tuna de Tierra, who take the established tenets of various forms of heavy and pull them together in varying balances in order to best serve their songwriting.

True, one could easily argue that “Red Sun,” from name, to riff, to its forward punkish rhythm, is probably direct Kyuss tribute, but consider that it arrives after the Golden Void-esque “The Bark” and the boogie-laden “The Wave” and the context becomes a bit broader than a band from Italy trying to sound like a band from California. It also precedes seven-minute closer “Beyond the Edge,” and where one might expect Mr. Bison to simply switch back into the psychedelia-as-primary modus of the earlier title-track, they instead hold to a blend of funkified start-stop fuzz and scorching lead, a gritty, Radio Moscow-style blues vocal laid overtop that leads to an extended but still mostly earthbound jam.

That is to say, the band doesn’t just have a couple of set methods of songwriting and swap one out for the other. Of course this works to the benefit overall of Holy Oak, which caps with a repetitive and duly hypnotic progression while also bringing back vocals to keep the song grounded even at its most “out there” moment, which is a pretty fair analog to the entirety of the record. I’m not sure I’d call myself 100 percent on board with the zero-bass philosophy, but there’s no question that for Mr. Bison, the numbers add up. Their sound is fluid and engaging and their songwriting is varied enough that indeed they leave nothing wanting for dynamic. Many elements of what they do will be familiar to those experienced with the genre, but it’s in how they’re melded that Mr. Bison make their statement, and they make it loudly.

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