Cosmic Trip Machine’s Will Z has gone solo, putting together this experimental and spiritual concept album. Will Z himself has described the album as a Hermetic-Satanic-Christian schizophrenic project. Which is pretty much the most apt description of the music you are going to get with subjects of alchemy, satanism, occult underworld, black mass, Christianity and faith all covered somewhere in the record. There is very much a religious feel coming through the sounds with styles and sounds swaying to different extremes and in some cases merge together. The result is a massive buffet of sounds that transport you somewhere quite foreign.
The road starts off as a cold dark piece, slowly moving along with a subtle industrial backdrop it gives off the atmosphere of being driving along in a ghost town at night. When it reaches the half way mark it suddenly turns into a charismatic folk tune that is slightly lighter but still with an eerie feeling. Open the book has a creepy circus feel, with a catchy tune backed with a chilling psychedelic background vocals. Salamamder has a strong eastern feel to it. Starting off cool and calm it gradually builds up in sound and pace to become a massive ball of chaotic atmosphere by the end. Diamond Planet is reminicent of Pink Floyd’s early and more experimental work, stripped back and chilled out it has a airy earthy feel. The Great Alchemist works as the songs most “single like” tune. The calm guitars and the light hearted “la la la”s give off quite a nice feel. Travelin takes the opposite direction with a thick psychedelic prog rock vibe that gets progressively more experimental jumping off towards a charismatic Christian chant in the second half of the song.
S Love Song has a chilling piano solo as its center piece, moving from slow eerie notes to fast chaotic ones it works as the perfect horror/thriller soundtrack. It then calms itself down to a more placid feeling with a dreamy spacy background. Hermetic Spell sees the music reach its progressive climax. At times sounding like it could have come from the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Oddity, it goes off an an epic spiritual journey that has rough chaotic and confronting moments as well as calmer moments of clarity.
The album closes with the relatively stripped back acoustic folk tune This Gold.
The one thing about this album is it is extremely intense with all manner of ideas being explored and crammed into the 40 minutes. Most songs themselves have a number of twists, turns, and very experimental sounds being explored.
This is a very brave album to put together and one that does not hold back or leave any stone unturned. Indeed it feels like every single idea through up in the writing of the album is included somewhere. The rather unconventional manner of the songs means it might not be the most accessible to all listeners. However if you are open to new and unusual music this truly is mind blowing stuff!
Check out Will Z’s website to find out more!
