Robedoor - Too Down To Die

They're back! Not Not Fun co-impresario Britt Brown's Robedoor project continues its unstoppable upwards progress with yet another superb platter of psychedelic throb and drone gumbo. These guys create amazing tone structures, bridging the gap between cosmic psychedelia and the churning doom sludge of Sunn O))) and all their sinister buddies. On this LP we've got a single massive track on side A and then four shorter ones on side B. As you'd expect, the opener takes its time getting going, with the distant fruity rumble of a bass guitar underpinning kosmic waves of synth and rippling cymbals for a good ten minutes or so, with pinches of melody sometimes poking out from the fug, before a slow, ominous beat gets thrown into the mix, and towards the end of the side we've got a super-slow groove backed with some drawled slacker vocals, almost chanted in places, as the atmosphere slowly builds back up to the dense and opaque wall of blackness we started with. Bit Raccoo-oo-oony in its free psych abandon in places actually. Things are rockier here than I expected since I thought this band were essentially a psych-drone combo, but the way they've incorporated more conventional songwriting techniques into these past couple of albums whilst keeping the focus on their smouldering black heart is really impressive. The shorter tracks on the flip offer some real variety - sometimes a bit more minimal, with airy haunted guitars and vocals over bass throbs and undulating drones; sometimes pulsating with astral synth stabs and Suicide-esque vocals over massive walls of distorted guitar; sometimes stripped right back to Teenage Panzerkorps-style arid, spooked kraut/post-punk. A confident and engaging return for this hugely impressive band.