The legendary British psychedelic noise rock/power-electronics/noise band Ramleh has very recently come out with a new album after a long time. The album is titled Circular Time and the name truly refers to Ramleh coming back to its roots with this release. The album packs a lot of awesome psychedelic noise rock similar to Ramleh's early days, with albums like Blowhole, Homeless, Grudge For Life and Be Careful What You Wish For coming to mind. Circular Time has obviously got a power-electronics part as well, with the most notable example being a track titled Weird Tyranny. While it is not as good as Ramleh's earlier tracks like True Religion, it still packs quite a punch. This album though is mostly all about noise rock.
A lot of tracks on the new album also have similarities to Skullflower's earlier psychedelic noise rock albums like Illrd Gatekeeper or Last Shot At Heaven. Tracks like Re-Entry, American Womanhood, Never Returner, The Ascent and some others, all pack some echo laden feedback filled guitars accompanied by early Skullflower-like and Ramleh'esque epic repetitive percussion and an unrelenting krautrockish bass section. The distorted highly echo laden vocals are also very similar to Ramleh's great early days. Circular Time isn't however only about going back to the roots, but also sounds very new in a way. What is most noticeable is Ramleh's movement towards more generic noisy psychedelic rock, the prime example of which is Never Returner and perhaps Incubator. Parallels can also be drawn with their earlier tracks like Black Moby Dick, but whatever the case may be, Never Returner is one amazing psychedelic noise rock track that you can listen to many times in repeat.
While Ramleh has moved back or closer to noisy feedback driven psychedelic rock as such, it is a more than welcome development, as the album truly warps time and space all around, and it is no surprise when you end up in the noisy gruesome bliss of Renaissance Warfare while listening to the album. With its feedback filled guitars and epic repetitive basslines and drums, as well as Weird Tyranny-like power-electronics marbles, that are nowadays truly hard to come by, it is no doubt that Ramleh's Circular Time is the best psychedelic noise rock release of 2015. More albums like this are much needed.
Bandcamp: https://crucialblast.bandcamp.com/album/circular-time
Discogs: http://www.discogs.com/artist/65696-Ramleh
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Ramleh
