Megaton Leviathan Announce Guns and LSD: The Complete Demos 2007-2013 3LP
The world is a more bizarre place with Megaton Leviathan in it, and fortunately I don’t mean that in a horrifying way. The now-long-running, long-since-dug-in doomgaze outfit led by founding guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Andrew James Costa Reuscher have a new collection of demos in the offing, and true to (long)form, it’s a triple-LP. I don’t know about you, but I’m for sure interested in hearing the psychological expanse of a 33-minute Megaton Leviathan song — itself invariably too much to fit on a single vinyl side — and wouldn’t you know, Guns and LSD: The Complete Demos 2007-2013 would seem to provide.
The band’s must recent offering was 2018’s Mage (discussed here), so Guns and LSD arrives in good time to follow that up while giving a glimpse at the process behind the expanded-definition heavy the band has perveyed for the last 15 years, refusing to rest on laurels or stop progressing all the while.
Until the next thing, then:
DOOMGAZE PIONEERS MEGATON LEVIATHAN RELEASE “REPEATING PATTERNS OF LOVE”, THE FIRST TRACK FROM UPCOMING SPECIAL 3 LP DEMOS SET, “GUNS AND LSD, THE COMPLETE DEMOS 2007-2013”
Astoria, OR-based Megaton Leviathan has been creating heavy, cinematic music that has mystified and enthralled listeners since the band’s debut album, “Water Wealth Hell On Earth”, in 2010. Always looking to expand musically on what the band helped define as the burgeoning Doomgaze-Doompop genre, Megaton Leviathan’s creative visionary, Andrew Reuscher, is continually redefining the band’s vision while setting a new standard with the mixing of lo-fi elements and modern production.
It’s been four years since Megaton Leviathan’s third and last full length album, the industrial Doomgaze masterpiece “Mage”, and now Reuscher is proud to announce that the band will soon be releasing “Guns and LSD, The Complete Demos 2007-2013”. Featuring the complete demos of the 2011 demo tape “Repeating Patterns of Love”, and 2010’s “Water Wealth Hell On Earth”, “Guns and LSD” will be available digitally as well as a special 3 LP set. Reuscher says, “The idea with this album was to experiment and push the listener. It’s heavy, but doom isn’t my permanent residence. I incorporated some industrial and shoegaze. The second demo is especially heavier. A lot of feedback noise art and power electronics with two heavy songs and a 33 minute track that ends with a string section. The bonus tracks are outtakes. I did my best to stay true to my vision, but definitely leaned into the harder.” In advance of the release of the albums, Megaton Leviathan unveils the track “Repeating Patterns of Love”.
Reuscher wrote “Repeating Patterns of Love” in his Gateway Portland home in 2007 and he produced and remixed it from the original files for the demo mastered by Warren Defever at Third Man. “With all these songs from this time, ‘Repeating Patterns Of Love’ was an exercise in being vulnerable lyrically and with my ability as a musician”, he says. ‘It’s all here, open to being torn apart. It is the story of a screwed up kid from Turlock, California, trying to start a band. I tuned my guitar down a step, plugged a fuzz pedal into The Fender Super 6 I borrowed from my friend Billy Kyle and followed my heart. Turns out the ‘Doom’ gazes back.”
Putting together “Guns and LSD, The Complete Demos 2007-2013” has given Reuscher the much-needed time to look back and reflect on the over thirteen years of Megaton Leviathan. “I am still, to this day, driven to feed the beast. That’s how it breathes fire. So here we are long overdue, but suffice it to say the time has come to deliver the goods.”
2018’s “Mage” featured a cover of Cluster & Brian Eno’s song “The Belldog”, in addition to contributions from Acid Punk visionary Helios Creed and Secret Chiefs 3 alumni Ada Stacy. The band’s second full length release was 2014’s “Past 21 Beyond the Arctic Cell.”
The last few years Reuscher has taken Doomgaze to a different dimension. He has collaborated with the UK’s Emmergy FX on a fuzz/delay effect pedal and has created a demonstration video that showcases the absolute beauty and mayhem this pedal is capable of. The video is available on YouTube.
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