Some might recall the name Nick Sewell from the more garage-hued rock outfit The Illuminati, who released two albums through Century Media offshoot before they and the label both disbanded. If you don’t recall Sewell from that group or those albums, though, it’s probably alright (though they decent), because as the bassist/vocalist has reemerged in the also-Toronto-based Biblical, the context probably wouldn’t do you much good anyhow. A double-guitar, sometimes-organ-infused four-piece, Biblical seem to be on a completely different wavelength.

Or if not completely different, certainly different enough. Biblical‘s swagger is definitely their own. The foursome of Sewell, guitarist/vocalist Matt Mclaren, guitarist/organist Andrew Scott and drummer Jay Anderson got together in 2010 and last year self-released their debut EP, a four-track self-titled 10″ vinyl that’s as stylish as it is brash, given some sense of foreboding by Scott‘s organ playing and rife with blues-revival furor. Like you took your favorite retro rock band and threw them in an echo chamber in places, and in other spots purposefully calling out The Bad Seeds as an influence to anyone who’ll be willing to listen. Biblical is faster, and a song like “Under Duress” way ballsier, but I get it.

Where things really open up, though is with the finale “Oubliette,” where the guitars start to get all proggy and the melody lines feel cleaner. The organ makes a big difference on “Oubliette,” as it does throughout the EP, but the more relaxed guitar really ups the level of ambience, however re-grounded the song becomes in the chorus, Sewell‘s shouts topping jagged finesse with what sounds an awful lot like ease, especially following the Misfits-meets-Graveyard chicanery of the shorter “Eyes of Lies,” which preceded. It’s a cool release that’s farther away from stoner rock than garage, but still has a couple heavy underpinnings. As it’s 18 minutes long and as Biblical (whose website is here) are streaming it on their Bandcamp page, I figured no harm in posting it in case anyone else wanted to check it out too. Here goes:

Tags: Biblical, Canada, Ontario, Toronto, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012 at 5:33 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.