Nebula - Heavy Psych
Nebula have been knocking around for the best part of twelve years now but have somehow never quite risen out of the second division of stoner / psyche bands. Rather too in hock to the sound of the band that guitarist Eddie Glass and drummer Ruben Romano left to form Nebula, Fu Manchu, they’ve always had the riffs and the fuzz but never quite the imagination to know what to do with them. In a genre that is not exactly renowned for deviating from the template, Nebula take slavish devotion to what has gone before just a bit too far.
New album ‘Heavy Psych’ is a perfect illustration of this. There are some moments on the record that are fantastic: when the opener ‘Pulse’ kicks about half way in; the dark, throbbing intro to ‘Dream Submarine’ and the injection of groove in to ‘Crown of Thorns’ but too often these ideas amble off, go nowhere or descend in to terrible rock posturing cliché.
‘Dream Submarine’ is perhaps the best idea on the album but they don’t explore its full potential and it fades away after two minutes, yet the cliché made music that is ‘In The Depths’ chugs on for twice that long.
Unfortunately, whilst these boys get a 10 for effort, and I’m willing to lay down money that they are a blast live, they come in at a low 5 for imagination and execution. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent listen but it’ll leave you feeling like you’ve heard most of it before and then probably not go back to it. It seems they are forever destined to be the Preston North End of this genre.
Top Tracks: 'Dream Submarine', 'Crown of Thorns’.
Released July 06 on TeePee