Ah I can close my eyes whilst playing this and smell its incense. Well I could do if I had not burned the toast but figuratively speaking this wafts exotic flavours such as patchouli and nag champa, maybe with a twist of vanilla and cinnamon for good measure; the three tracks on this EP from these San Fran retro rockers are indeed heady stuff. If you had already been paying attention and watched the band evolve from previous incarnation Totem and deliver their self-titled debut album a couple of years ago you would already know this. Although others are doing this sort of thing and the likes of The Devil’s Blood seemingly shot out of nowhere and the trippy flute playing Blood Ceremony wowed many on tour with Electric Wizard recently, none of them quite evoke an air of mystery about them like these arcane pagan minstrels.
This is a very calm and gentle listen and a bit of a chill out at the end of a heavy bong session sort of disc to put you in a mellower frame of mind. The original tracks start with a lovely lush organ sound straight out of yesteryear as we are eased into ‘Raven Nor The Spirit.’ This and ‘Slow Rewind’ pretty much blend into each other and if you did not have the info to hand you could easily be under the impression that this was one long song. I am reminded a bit of Siouxsie here at her gentlest, perhaps even of her lovely covers of ‘Trust In Me’ and ‘Strange Fruit.’ That could be down to the fact that my mind is trying to tell me this must be a cover song as nobody could be making original music quite like this in this day and age. It is bewitching stuff and although it seems a cliché to say so it invokes its spell over the listen and enchants magically.
There is actually a cover to finish this off with and again it seems to virtually carry on from the other couple of numbers. How many people will know the original of ‘Mr Rainbow’ by Slapp Happy (isn’t that what the yoof of today get up to with their mobile phones) is beyond me, but I would not think a great many. Actually as they did record with Faust as a backing band at one point I am sure there are a few ‘heads’ out there familiar. Anyway before I go off on tangents it’s another lovely number, very much timeless in essence and a good way to end an all too short teaser. The Sami Hynnien artwork is of course great imagery to the music itself. Can’t wait for the next album.
http://www.myspace.com/totemdoom
