Desert Storm Premiere “Bad Trip” Video From Death Rattle LP
Having marked their 15th anniversary two years ago, Oxford semi-aggro heavy rockers Desert Storm will issue their sixth album, Death Rattle, on March 31 through respected purveyor APF Records. The occasion also brought some change, as concurrent to their celebratory tour — also supporting their last album, 2020’s Omens (discussed here) — the veteran outfit swapped bassists, bringing Matthew Dennett (also of Battalions) in to replace Chris Benoist, who’d been with them at least since 2010’s debut album, Forked Tongues (review here), and probably longer, and also stripped down their lineup, moving from two guitarists to one in bidding farewell to Chris White (who also handled keys, backing vocals and some bass).
That leaves vocalist Matthew Ryan, guitarist Ryan Cole and drummer Elliot Cole (the latter two, who, yes, are twins, also of Wall and the recently-hiatus’ed The Grand Mal) as the remaining founders of a band that up till that point had managed to keep its lineup steady all the while. Longtime followers of Desert Storm may note some shift in dynamic in the direct one-to-the-other in comparing the nine-song/47-minute Death Rattle to its predecessor, but anyone concerned about some lack of impact as a result of the missing guitar need not fret — it’s called layering, as heard in the layered lead lines of “Druid’s Heath” — as there’s still heavy to spare in Desert Storm‘s sound, and perhaps a bit more flexibility around that than there’s been previously.
But the truth is even that’s more a continuation of the steady expansion of sound that’s been taking place all the while in Desert Storm rather than some radical shift brought on by a specific event. That’s not to downplay what either Benoist or White brought to the band, just to say that Desert Storm have been about more than boozy Southern-style burl ‘n’ plunder for years now and Death Rattle continues to move forward. “Master of None” provides a reassuringly weighted opening, a big swing in the drums behind the relatively straightforward, stage-ready rocker, catchy and punchy in kind in its hook and hinting in the melody of its bridge at some of the range that fleshes out beginning with second track (and lead single) “Cheyne Stoking,” also the longest inclusion at 7:46.
With no shortage of crash and thud behind in Elliot Cole‘s drumming, building tension that’s carried over from the leadoff and opening wide as it moves into its midsection, the band move fluidly through a progressive-tinged bombast, Ryan audibly pushing himself vocally to add to the melody around the three-minute mark as much as he brings to the headbanger-chugging crunch just half a minute later after the next turn. “Death Rattle” has a hook of its own and is emblematic of many of the moves Desert Storm make throughout Death Rattle, whether it’s the way the later “Insomniac” bravely lets go of its massive, intense and guttural beginning to shift into a long and relatively minimal stretch before coming back not quite at full oomph for a long march and fadeout, or the acoustic-underpinned album centerpiece “Salt of the Earth,” with its trades in volume and intertwining layers of fuzz and melody.
As “Melatone” touches on post-rock in its own floating layers of guitar — if you told me White was actually on the record alongside Ryan Cole, I’d believe you, but the point about the more open sound stands — and echoes the patient intro and subdued finish of the earlier “Bad Trip” (video premiering below), the sense that Desert Storm are perhaps letting the songs breathe a bit more becomes all the more an essential facet of Death Rattle. Even set next to, say, “The Path of Most Resistance” from Omens, the band in their maturity seem comfortable in pulling back on the onslaught factor — in places, lest we forget the frustrated mania that launches “Insomniac” or the wash of crash behind the final chorus of “Cheyne Stoking,” let alone the payoff of “Bad Trip” itself — and that also lets the distinguishing fuzz of “Melatone” and the crush/drift duality of the penultimate “Self Deprecation” have a richer context in which to unfold. Death Rattle, then, becomes not a story of what Desert Storm have lost, but the manner in which they’ve been able to stay on the path of their overarching progression despite the changes in their makeup.
Taken as a whole, Death Rattle is their most expansive offering to date, and maintains the strength of songwriting that’s been so consistent throughout their career while stepping with characteristic boldness onto new-feeling stylistic ground. If there’s a hiccup in the material from bringing Dennett in on bass, I haven’t found it, and as the record unfolds from “Master of None” into the more complex fare that follows, the band come across as well in control of both where their material is going, how it’s getting there, and — perhaps most importantly — why.
They close Death Rattle with the 2:42 instrumental “New Dawn,” which sweeps in on atmospheric guitar and percussion that still has some density of stomp behind; a desert-bluesy vibe without being blues or desert rock. Acoustic guitar returns under the electrics and there’s a vague sense of threat in the tension of its more active parts, but the guitars let it go gently at around two and a half minutes in and Desert Storm finish in a way that’s not so much unlike “Rebirth” from the last album (save for not having vocals), but more efficiently establishes its mood.
It becomes an ending representative in affect if not a total summary of how Death Rattle functions, and underscores the point that Desert Storm, at this stage in their tenure, know who they are and what they want to do as a unit, even as that idea evolves with time. One tends to make note of titles that could be interpreted as endings for the band in question, and Death Rattle — recorded and mixed by Steve “Geezer” Watkins at Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire — certainly fits that bill, but whether or not it’s last rites for Desert Storm personally, the scope and sense of craft they bring forth is a triumph for them as a group and feels like a level of realization they’ve been working toward for years now. If they keep it going, so much the better.
The video premiere for “Bad Trip” is on the player below, followed by some comment from the band, the preorder link, tour dates and whatnot from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Desert Storm, “Bad Trip” video premiere
Matthew Ryan on “Bad Trip”:
“What happened quite naturally during the writing process for Bad Trip, was something just clicked. The thoughts and emotions associated just felt so familiar. It was an obvious choice at the time. This is a Eulogy about a great man who the band knew fondly. March 2023 marks the tenth year of his premature passing, and so it felt fitting to pay tribute by releasing Death Rattle this month. He was a thinker, was studying philosophy and was a self-professed psychonaut. He joined us on tour in our formative years and we loved having him on the road. We admired him and cared a lot about him, has been in our thoughts and our liner notes, but it is high time we immortalised him through song. As we get older, we think about our life experiences as well as his own that he is missing out on. Not able to join us in the journey through life, to see us wed, with families, large milestones and celebrations. He is sorely missed. The title itself refers to a particularly hairy moment in his history where we learned that the intensity of blotter acid is far easier to regulate than that of concentrated liquid acid. It was understood that a single droplet would be sufficient for an intense hallucinogenic experience, however, to mark the final trip of the bottle, somebody decided to lick the glass pipette.”
Preorder link: https://linktr.ee/desertstormuk
Desert Storm is a four-piece progressive metal band, which has been wielding crushing riffs and grooves into earholes around the world for the past 15 years. 31st March 2023 will see the release of their new album ‘Death Rattle’ out worldwide on APF Records (Video Nasties, Possessor, Battalions). In 2023 they will tour extensively to support the release of ‘Death Rattle’.
DESERT STORM ‘DEATH RATTLE’ EUROPEAN TOUR
31.03.23 | UK | Oxford | o2 Academy 2
01.04.23 | NL | Arnhem | Willemeen
02.04.23 | BE | Retie | Cafe Bazaar
03.04.23 | DE | Hamburg | Bar 227
04.04.23 | NL | Den Haag | Paard Cafe
05.04.23 | NL | Eindhoven | Effenaar
06.04.23 | DE | Dresden | Chemiefabrik
07.04.23 | CZ | Prague | Modra Vopice
08.04.23 | SK | Kosice | Collosseum
09.04.23 | PL | Katowice | Katofonia
10.04.23 | DE | Furth | Kunstkeller 027
11.04.23 | BE | Antwerp | Kids Rhythm n blues kaffee
12.04.23 | DE | Aachen | Musikbunker
20.05.23 | UK | London | The Dome
08.09.23 | NO | Stavanger | Checkpoint Charlie
09.09.23 | NO | Sandnes | Tribute
10.09.23 | NO | Oslo | Brewgata
30.09.23 | UK | Manchester | Riffolution Festival
17.11.23 | NL | Amsterdam | The Cave
18.11.23 | NL | Coevorden | MFC
Desert Storm is –
Matthew Ryan – Vocals
Ryan Cole – Guitars
Elliot Cole – Drums & Percussion
Matthew Dennett – Bass
[…] Desert Storm release new single »Bad Trip« later this week. You can watch the video for the song right now exclusively over at The Obelisk. […]