GAS GIANT (Mana) LP/CD
Denmark's GAS GIANT returns with their second full-length chapter and for my taste, it's much better than the debut "Pleasent Journey In Heavy Tunes", which I have reviewed a few years ago. For my taste, the debut had some very good tracks, but half of the album was nothing outstanding, just typical heavy rock with influences from Queens Of The Stone Age and stuff like this. But with "Mana", GAS GIANT are back to pulverize your brain. The took the listener into a melodic sonic maelstrom, where one don't need any natural substances like weed or shrooms to get high. Of course, everything is here ... the fuzzed out guitars, tons of reverb and ass-shaking grooves and a charasmatic lead singer. One song is titled "Orange Fender", what means that the guitar and bass sound is fat and warm and the tubes are glowing like light in the distance. "Mana" is a very varied album, where softer psychedelic parts are exploding into earthshaking grooves.
Just check out the acoustic title track or the atmospheric "Green Valley", which belongs to one of my favourite tracks of this album. And for all friends of straight forward rockin' tunes, you find songs like "Phantom Tanker" or the phenomal opener "There's One". The CD closes with the 13+ long "Safe Haven", a trippy ambient experience, without any drums or heavy chords. "Mana" isn't that typical heavy fuzz rock album, and it offers a lot of nice surprises. Maybe, GAS GIANT are one of the heaviest psych bands, which are around today and now it's up to you to check them out. I give you the advice to do it, because it's worth. The CD version, which contains more songs as the vinyl version, has been released through Elektrohasch Schallplatten, but the LP comes with gatefold sleeve in a limited edition on Nasoni Records.
(KK)