Mills of God Will Turn Your Skull into Powder
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Longfellow was right; Mills of God grind really fucking slowly. The German instrumental trio’s first full-length, Call of the Eastern Moon (Modus Operandi), is like a dopesmoking Jerusalem-bound pilgrimmage led by Yob and Ufomammut marching to the beat of half-speed Earthless, and with bonus cut “The Seed” included on the CD version — the vinyl only has the title track and the aptly-named “Monolith” — there’s over an hour’s worth of riffed out psychedelic doom to expand (and blow) your mind.
Just to reiterate the math in that last sentence: three tracks, an hour-plus. “Call of the Eastern Moon” clocks in at 21:25 (hell, it’s barely begun until seven minutes in!), “Monolith” is 21:51 and “The Seed” is a measly 19:57. If you’ve ever gotten down with some long-format doom, I highly suggest you start paying attention to these dudes right now.
The title track has guitar solos all over the place and sets a patient pace for the rest of the record to follow. It’s not funeral doom slow, there’s a definite stoner groove, but they’re not far off. The atmosphere is heavy and like the best of this kind of music, it sounds loud no matter at what volume it is played. Intermittent and fuzzy bass runs from bassist/guitarist Kai Peifer beginning at 16:35 foreshadow a killer solo on the next track and break up the riffs and soloing from guitarist Moritz Czarny which otherwise lead these massive jams. Drummer Patrick Alt hits hard but makes the most of a dynamic range, crashing when he needs to crash and otherwise relying on a jazzy penchant for his ride cymbal.
“Monolith” follows a similar course, is heavy and heady as hell and only releases one groove to begin the next. The aforementioned bass solo (I think it’s bass; could just as easily be another guitar, they’re so damn thick), comes on at around eight minutes, and it doesn’t last long, it’s more of a transition, but the sheer sound of it, the vibrating fuzz, makes me think of some rare kind of coral stretching for miles under the water of an Indonesian reef. It sounds alive, in other words. Moritz turns in a couple cool wah and delay moments as well, but I think by and large the intent of the music is to engulf the listener, not be parsed second by second. They’re going for overwhelming, and they hit it.
Drummer Christoph Salzmann, since out of the band with Alt as his replacement, turns in a respectable performance on the somewhat less psych “The Seed,” which demonstrates the growth and condensing Mills of God have undergone the last few years. It may be their first record, but you don’t write a 20-minute song — or a good one, anyway — without some idea of what the hell you want it to sound like. Call of the Eastern Moon, mastered by Bob Weston of Shellac and encased in incredibly well-suited Tom Denney artwork, sounds fully envisioned and fully realized. I can’t wait to hear what they do next.
great review, guys!