Double-guitar Austrian four-piece BeenObscene make their Elektrohasch debut with The Magic Table Dance, an album that finds the band unpretentiously duna-jamming their way through eight organic tracks of Euro-fuzz reminiscent at times of earliest Natas and keeping a spontaneous feel despite being mostly led by the riffs. The album starts instrumentally, and listening to it, it wouldn’t have surprised me had all of The Magic Table Dance been entirely sans vocals, as the flow of the five-minute opening title cut is so easy that, on the first time through, you might just assume the tracks that follow are as well. It’s most of the way through the second song, “Uniform,” before guitarist Thomas Nachtigal sings at all, and though he’s joined on the record by a number of guest performers, BeenObscene’s first offering feels more focused on the music. Given some of the grooves they elicit, that’s not a complaint.

“Come Over,” which follows the start-stop riffing of “Uniform,” is the first of several tracks on which drummer Robert Schoosleitner really makes his presence known, keeping the presentation classy under the guitar grooves of Nachtigal and fellow guitarist Peter Kreyci with popping snare hits that add a jazz feel to what many other percussionists would probably straight-ahead on the hi-hat. He and bassist Philipp Zezula show off some angularity on the shorter, instrumental “Freakin’ Rabbit,” lending the track a feel similar to what Swedish fuzz-mongers Asteroid did on their second album. The Magic Table Dance feels like a quick mover by the time you get to “Impressions,” where Orange-hued riffage meets more traditional stoner structures offset by snare ghost-notes from Schootleitner, but the 14-minute “Demons” changes the feel of the album entirely, showing BeenObscene, in addition to being able to jam harmless and charming tunes out with the best of them, can also affect some serious epic songwriting.

Read more »