The Russian avant-garde noise-rock/psych rock band Usssy released their new album 'Voyage' a couple of weeks ago via the American record label Koolarrow. The album pretty much follows the more or less expected path of Eastern influenced avant-garde noise-rock/psych rock, and thus should please anyone who digs their previous albums like 'Unsharp Mask' or 'Afgan Music House Party'. Or really any of the other ones.
The album starts off with a track titled 'African Rock' and it is pretty much clear from the first notes that Usssy have started right where 'Afgan Music House Party' left off. The track packs some fine Eastern influenced avant-garde and mathrock influenced noisy psych, while the second track 'Watching Sunrise' continues in a slightly mellower way although with a completely similar feel. Actually the same can be said about the following tracks too, with the likes of 'Dune', 'Voyage', 'Western' and 'Clay Bar' standing out for me the most, with the latter two being my favorite tracks from the album altogether with their heavily catchy noise-rock/psych riffage. The album doesn't only offer heavy Eastern influenced noise-rock riffage, but also packs some calmer psych and ambience bits in the middle of it all - for this check out for example the appropriately titled track 'Bogged Down in The Sands'. All in all the album really brings about images of some Malian or other North-African insurgency groups driving around in the desert with AK's and Toyota pickup trucks - someting similar to all the Tuareg psychedelia of Bombino and the likes, only in a heavier and more prog/avant-garde/mathrock influenced noise-rock key. Can it be said that these Russians sound like something that would have emerged if Unsane or Cherubs would be from Northern Mali?
Either way the material sounds quite awesome and thus anyone who dug their previous albums will surely not be dissappointed by this one either. Usssy remain as one of the more interesting noise-rock/psych bands that draw inspiration from the 'East' in a sense that they do not essentially re-play some 1970s Turkish psychedelia in a modern coating like some more famous bands, but create something unique and distinct only to them.
Check it out here:
Get album: http://koolarrow.com/releases/voyage/
Listen to it: https://usssy.bandcamp.com/album/voyage
