BURNT HILLS - LIVE AT THE LOW BEAT
golden lab 2016, edition of 250
"Holed-up at the Helderberg House, these cuddly middle-aged monsters of tuff, levitational, psychedelic thug punk swirliness have made an avant-rock legend of their agoraphobia... surrounded by a wall of cabs loud enough to be heard four streets away... [this] was the first of what will be an annual performance outside the basement. All ten members were in attendance and it’s safe to assume that they were all pretty well smoked as it doesn’t take long for shit to really fly... this is the most savage, raging, oblivion-bound Burnt Hills set yet committed to wax... a whole bucketload of sensitive noodling amidst the chaos – along with the obligatory shred – but it's the six-guitar pile-up that really takes this crescendo-obsessed troupe of suburban weirdos into the 'Lord take me now!' zone." - GOLDEN LAB
a lobe splitting half hour of some of the awesomest free rock i've ever heard - i bragged that PSI LAB's very own PIPE DREAM was BURNT HILLS best yet, and i think it was until this came along - it's kinda weird to say that a band that has been doing this for a good decade has hit their stride, but that seems to be the case at least by my measure - and by "a good decade" i don't mean just their back catalog of two dozen (ish) titles but also they supposedly get together and jam on a weekly basis - some folks have weekly poker nights, some folks go to see whatever band is playing at their fav hip venue every weekend, some folks -are- the band and the hip venue is their basement
LIVE AT THE LOW BEAT spools up quickly as their crazed vocalist/fx dude hollers "ladies and gentlemen... i give you... the BURNT HILLS... sound... system... sound... system..." then the jam blasts off full afterburner like HAWKWIND's SPACE RITUAL meets MC5's KICK OUT THE JAMS meets SUNBURNED HAND's JAYBIRD, or like some bizarro world COMETS ON FIRE, or perhaps like playing the first two COMETS records at the same time and finding they somehow synch just enough, like some "dark side of the rainbow" phenomenon, eventually spiraling down and further out into a demented mumbling mantra zone perhaps guided by CAN's "yoo doo right" by way of SONIC YOUTH's BAD MOON RISING
despite their always maxed out weirdo freakness, this foray seems a bit more locked n loaded on the pummeling groove, part of that could be the recording and/or mastering, their usually impenetrable mesh of do-your-own-damn-thing cacophonous six-guitar bliss has a bit more give, almost more a textural environ rather than blaring front-and-center or more typically in some SPECTOR-esque bleeding wall of sound fashion - i don't wanna say it's more polished - it's definitely not that - it's still very much BH, it's still raucous and unrefined in the best possible way, but maybe with just a bit more "oh hell yeah this rocks" mentality - i don't know man, this could be my #1 album of the year right here
no brainer highest possible recommendation
i captured a brief sample here
looks like BH's head shop hq FLIPPED OUT is already sold out but you can still get it straight from the source - i hear that FORCED EXPOSURE is expected to get some, somehow they still have copies of the massive RISE ABOVE double lp and the almighty LIVE AT THE ELEVENS, both limited to 99, unaware free rock heads might wanna grab those quick
https://goldenlabrecords.com/2016/04/01/burn-hills-live-at-the-low-beat-lp-rowf-55/
http://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/BURNT.HILLS.html
GOLDEN LAB has this glimpse of last december's low beat outing (this lp was recorded december 2014) - i'm stoked, GOLDEN LAB better already have this slated for release
