Bong - Bethmoora

Another album from Bong is "Bethmoora" which was recorded not too long before their self titled album. The band has certainly got a incredible body of work behind them. Once again this is a CD for those of you who dig Sleep, Electric Wizard, Yob but also like the space rock sounds of Pink Floyd. This is a 2CD set containing 2 original monster tracks and a stunning cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun". "The Stone Mountain" kicks off the first CD in the same spawling monolithic fashion as the previous album i reviewed does, it borrows heavily from Sleep's "Dopesmoker" album with heavy amounts of reverb and this tune is play at a real crawling pace. So slow at times, its almost painful to listen to but i am a sucker for this kind of pain so bring it on. At 24 minutes, its quite a journey and is for the hardcore doom fan, you scene kids better run and hide from this beast. The second track "Bethmoora" is a little different, still doom and still incredibly heavy but it heads into some type of psychedelic nightmare and spits you out at the other end feeling dazed and hungover. The song builds and builds till the tension is almost unbearable, the distorted guitar sound and rumbling bass lines surround you for over 20 minutes and just when you expect some sort of big finish, its over. Put on the second disc and you know that bass-line, its Pink Floyd's classic tune "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun". I have never thought of Pink Floyd as a doom band but hearing this version makes you think they might have had some doom vision themselves. I always preferred the live version of the track on "Ummagumma" and this take on it is closer to that than Floyd's studio version. Bong reinterprets the track sightly to fit in with their doom agenda but this is still a total space rock journey of the most cosmic magnitude. The guitar roars and soars, vocals have that chanting style and there is a drum sound that would give Nick Mason a heart attack if he heard it, its totally thunderous to the extreme. The combination of Sabbath-ian heaviness and Floyd-ian spaciness is the band's sound of course so it works like a charm on this cover version. The great thing about Bong is while they doing something that has been done before, they are of the few bands that have truly taken it to the next level of sonic insanity. For the hardcore psychedelic doom purist maybe but a band that i can listen to all day.

1.  Stone Mountain
2. Bethmoora
3.  Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun


Heidenwut Productions
Reviewer: Ed
Dec 1, 2009
Next review: Bong - Bong

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