Review & Track Premiere: Black Elephant, Seven Swords
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on July 23rd, 2020 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream ‘Yayoi Kusama’ from Black Elephant’s Seven Swords. Album is out Aug. 21 on Small Stone Records and Kozmik Artifactz.]
The priority is set quickly on Black Elephant‘s Seven Swords, and it’s the vibe. With zero pretense about their intention, the Savona, Italy, four-piece unfurl their fourth long-player and second for Small Stone with the patient, gradual build-up of opening cut “Berta’s Flame,” clearly in no rush to get anywhere, quiet but definitely in motion, and subtly establishing both the tonal weight and the spacious atmospheres in which the rest of what follows will inhabit. There’s a theme to Seven Swords, which indeed boasts seven tracks over a wholly manageable 33 minutes — something about samurai; they could well be following the plot of the 2005 movie of the same name starring Donnie Yen for all I know — but the album as a whole is less about a narrative arc than an instrumental one. Led by the warm-toned fuzz of guitarists Alessio Caravelli and Massimiliano Giacosa, with Marcello Destefanis on bass and Simone Brunzu drumming, Black Elephant are not shy about playing to genre.
But if they’re preaching to the converted, they’re doing so because they themselves are the converted and they’re doing so with character and a sense of dynamic that, like the breadth of the mix as a whole, is established early. Hypnosis would seem to be the name of the game as “Berta’s Flame” rolls through its instrumental 6:48, but it’s not entirely ambient, and in its louder sections, it gives a glimpse of some of Seven Swords‘ more rocking moments to come, whether that’s the straightforward fuzzblast of “Yayoi Kusama” or the nothing-if-not-self-aware “Red Sun and Blues Sun” later on. Still, the wash of guitar that takes hold in “The Last March of Yokozuna,” fleshed out with effects and far-back drumming, makes clear Black Elephant‘s intention to showcase tone as a major factor in the album’s overarching personality. Fortunately, their tones, and the varied uses to which they’re put, live up to that task.
As noted, Seven Swords is Black Elephant‘s second full-length through Small Stone, and it follows 2018’s Cosmic Blues (review here) not without some sense of departure but a consistency of overarching purpose. That is, it’s mostly the theme that’s changed, but there is growth demonstrated over the course of the record as well. On the whole, Seven Swords feels more exploratory than its predecessor. It’s jammier, has a broader reach, and when it coheres around a verse/chorus riff, as on “Yayoi Kusama” — which in addition to being the third track is the first to feature vocals — the effect is striking. After “Berta’s Flame” and “The Last March of Yokozuna,” that first verse is almost a surprise the first time through the record, and that works much to Black Elephant‘s benefit, as their ability to adjust the balance of their approach continues to serve them throughout the rest of what follows. From such classic riff-rockery, they move into the centerpiece “Mihara,” which closes out the vinyl edition’s side A and boasts a reverb-soaked forward guitar lick at the outset that gracefully rolls into a steady groove of the sort in which “Berta’s Flame” traffics before it unveils its largesse.
A sense of threat of the same thing happening looms somewhat over “Mihara,” but it’s hardly a negative, and before they get there, a whispered verse and a stretch of dreamy lead guitar cap the first two minutes of the track. When the fuzz hits, it lands heavy, but the lead guitar continues to float overhead, lending atmospherics to the underlying weight, and reminding of breadth as a factor in what Black Elephant are doing throughout the songs, which flow together with deceptive ease, loud parts moving into quiet, jams solidifying, liquefying; backs and forths that sound easier than they are because they’re executed so smoothly. Drums end “Mihara” on tom roundabouts and finish cold, but the sense of side A as a united work remains prevalent, and the band’s firmness of purpose in that regard would seem to be emblematic of their experience over the decade they’ve spent together.
Side B is the shorter of the two halves by about three minutes, but there’s still plenty of work to be done, as “Red Sun and Blues Sun” indicates. It’s the shortest inclusion at just 2:41 — the longest is closer “Govinda” at 8:48 — but the title’s nod to Kyuss isn’t happenstance, but rather further evidence of the band’s self-awareness since, indeed, it’s a Kyuss-style riff that follows the guitar count-in at the beginning of the track. With tambourine adding to the rhythm and the two guitars intertwining, though, Black Elephant make their mark on the brief instrumental, branching out in the midsection before resuming the push and finishing together in time to reference “Faeries Wear Boots” at the start of “Seppuku.” That dogwhistle, bound to perk up the ears of much of the band’s listenership, is likewise put to more individualized use, as the basis for a bluesy riff accompanied by distorted vocals early but soon giving way to mid-paced fuzzy roll that builds through one of Seven Swords‘ stronger hooks.
It serves as something of a landmark for side B, pulling back from the desert idolatry of “Red Sun and Blues Sun” and preceding the immediate psychedelic impression made by the opening guitar on “Govinda.” The finale is a stretch and meant to be one, but it does not pick sides, rather summarizing the course the rest of the album has followed, almost condensing its shifts into its own run between more serene and more driven progressions. It is ultimately the jammy side that wins out over the bulk of the song — almost inevitably — though as Black Elephant hit into the final moments of “Govinda,” they embrace a last fuzzy measure on the way to a return of the open-feeling guitar that launched. That’s a pointed conclusion just the same, highlighting the consciousness at work behind Black Elephant‘s craft and the tricky nature of a record that’s so likely to put its audience in a trance without losing itself in the process. Whatever theme they’re working under, that would seem to be Black Elephant‘s greatest strength, and it makes the manner in which their work unfolds all the more engrossing.
