DESCRIPTION:
Another "I can't believe I'm posting something relatively 'new' (circa 2004)" but then again, "I can't believe no one else has posted anything from And The Left Handed."

There are rare exceptions to unspoken supreme music asshole rules... And to ATLH's IN THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS one such exception applies. I will, almost 100% always shoot down a neo/revival version of a band/sub-genre/whatever in the face of its point-of-origin. But as i was listening to this more-recent-old-favorite album, I found myself thinking neo-space rock might actually have its benefits... Before you get huffy at the seeming sacrilege i am about to commit, yes, the og space rock movement was an incredible thing. Hawkwind, RESPECT. But what I like on this new, Finnish take on it is how NOT tinged by the almost unshakeable hippy vibe that its predecessors were forced by their times to bear.

Don't get me wrong - this album is hardly conservative - it's far out there enough to live up to the genre. It's actually a really organic crossroads of space rock, Cannish-prog (is that the German, tripped-out cousin of 'Mannish Boy'?), garage and dear psych, oh psych. Without being pretentiously referential. "Love Me Now", the opener, serves as perhaps the mellowest gatekeeper to the more driving rest of the album, but it stands alone regardless.

Need a slightly more unfolding experience beyond the pharmaceutical bliss of Spacemen 3? Find this album...