Full Album Premiere & Review: Black Moon Circle, Leave the Ghost Behind
[Click play above to stream Black Moon Circle’s Leave the Ghost Behind in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow on vinyl through Crispin Glover Records and available to order from the band as well as from the label.]
The feeling of sprawl is almost immediate on Black Moon Circle‘s Leave the Ghost Behind. It’s been half a decade since the Norwegian trio last released a full-length, and 2018’s Psychedelic Spacelord (review here) served as the single-song culmination of a wildly productive few years for the band led by brothers Øyvin Engan (bass/vocals) and Vemond Engan (guitar/backing vocals). In 2019, they collected the three The Studio Jams LP releases — 2017’s The Studio Jams Vol. III: Flowing into the 3rd Dimension (review here), 2016’s The Studio Jams Vol. II (review here), 2015’s The Studio Jams Vol. I: Yellow Nebula in the Sky (discussed here) — and a bunch more into a 5CD box set, and they count Leave the Ghost Behind as their ’10th effort,’ which is fair enough, but in the lineage of albums, it follows Psychedelic Spacelord, 2016’s Sea of Clouds (review here), 2014’s Andromeda (review here) and self-titled debut EP (review here), and 2019’s collaboration with Øresund Space Collective, Freakout in the Fjord (review here), which likewise was more of a jam-based release.
Why does that matter? Because since their outset, there have always been two forces at work in Black Moon Circle between improvised space-jamming and more structured songwriting, and in Leave the Ghost Behind, the two ends come together in a way that feels new for the band. Coming together with the lineup of the Engans, drummer Tomas Järmyr (ex-Motorpsycho, Årabrot, etc.) and Portugal-based synthesist Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also Øresund Space Collective), the now-four-piece are vibrant across the four sides of a massive 85-minute 2LP that smooths out all the back and forth with washes of guitar, of synth, of the wandering grooves in extended pieces like the 18:29 “Psychedelic Spacelord (Lighter Than Air)” — yes, a take on the title-track of the 2018 LP; just go with it — and closer “Radiant Sun,” which at 22:52 is a multi-tiered universe of heavy psychedelic exploration. But it’s opener “Snake Oil,” with that sprawl noted at the outset, that sets the scene for what follows. Its 11 minutes are hypnotic at the start, Sabbathian doom wrought across the first minute or so with synth laid over top before the bass leads the way into the nodding repetitive chug that serves as the bed for the verse.
That shift, nod to nod, is huge in setting the expectation for Black Moon Circle to go where they will, because that’s exactly what they proceed to do, both in that song and over the rest of the record. “Bubbles in the Air” is duly floating ’90s post-grunge psych, and the shortest cut at 5:17, a drumless dream, while “Serpent” gives the proggier side of King Buffalo a burst of cosmic radiation, with Heller‘s synth running alongside the steady line of guitar even before the jazzy build begins on the drums, the song emphasizing both the instrumental dynamic of the band and the gruff melody in Øyvin‘s vocals as set forth in “Snake Oil” before it.
After deep-diving into “Psychedelic Spacelord (Lighter Than Air)” and “Bubbles in the Air,” side C’s “Cohiba” (9:20) feels absolutely grounded at the start, but is dug into a particularly improv-sounding jam with the bass as the foundation by the time they’re halfway in, and after they bring it back down to just that same guitar line and synth, its final minute becomes a willful drone and feedback — maybe some seagull sounds or just bird-esque synth? — that fades out before “Magellanic Cloud” announces its presence with further sci-fi ambience and drone for about the first two of its 10 total minutes, from there following a psych-bluesy course, guitar leading, bass underscoring, drums meeting back at the start of the measure but doing their thing along the way, the trajectory plotted but the journey duly winding, vocals never left entirely behind even in its synth-laced crescendo starting at around its final 90 seconds and just long enough for that to feel classic in its payoff.
“Magellanic Cloud” is a fitting analogue for what Leave the Ghost Behind as a whole accomplishes in bringing together the heretofore more divergent aspects of Black Moon Circle‘s aural persona. Certainly their willingness to experiment is nothing new, and that’s heard at the start, and they’ve had verses and choruses and jams a-plenty throughout the last nine years — if not so much the last four — but it’s the manner in which they’re assembled and the cohesion that emerges in the material as a result that is such a step forward, both in the songs themselves, whether it’s “Magellanic Cloud” or “Snake Oil” or “Psychedelic Spacelord (Lighter Than Air),” or “Serpent” and “Bubbles in the Air” and “Cohiba.” The balance has become a malleable thing.
And given the band’s ever-outward course, the finish that “Radiant Sun” provides is a letting-loose that draws from all sides, melts it all down with the scorch of its various solos, grows moss with its wash circa 14 minutes in, and from there becomes a cinematic weirdscape as Järmyr drops out on drums with a few crashes about a minute later, leaving amp noise, organ and synth to rule the day for a few minutes while sneaking back in on the ride cymbal after the vocals return at 19:10, beginning the transition to the largesse of the capstone movement, a cleareyed chorus taking hold after 21 minutes as a genuine surprise of airy heavy rock that earns the song’s title before giving over to the concluding noise; a snare snaps and then it’s drone to an ending that somehow feels quick after the long path walked to get there.
Leave the Ghost Behind is not at all a minor undertaking, and its exultation could be rooted in a call for self-actualizing post-trauma as much as letting go of one’s expectations for oneself — if those aren’t the same thing — but one way or the other, what Black Moon Circle leave behind is the sense of being one thing or the other between songwriters and a psychedelic jam band. These seven songs are substantial and drawn wide over the distances they conjure, but switched on in terms of more than just their effects pedals, and they represent a pivotal moment for the band in laying claim to the entirety of their process as one engrossing whole from which they can still expand.
I’m not saying they’ll never do a collection of jams again, or that they’ll never put out a record that’s eight songs and 38 minutes long, I’m saying the fun part is they can do either, both, or neither and that those who take them on won’t know what’s coming until they get there. If Leave the Ghost Behind represents a return to activity on the part of Black Moon Circle after a few years’ absence, or if it’s the culmination of work done throughout those few years — I honestly don’t know which, if it’s even one or the other — it’s a vital showcase of the promise laid out across their earlier run, approached with a vision and consciousness behind it that makes it all the more a triumph.
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