Album Review: The Black Angels - Death Song

To many people, psych-rock albums are happy affairs: light and summery, imbued with flower-powery lyricism.

But as you may guess from the title, The Black Angels' Death Song is not that kind of psych album.

Brooding and cynical, it's almost the inverse. It's probably the darkest material The Black Angels have ever recorded, and the most political they've ever been. Singer Alex Maas sets the tone on opener Currency; "All the debt and lives you've sold/There's no truth in who we trust" only one of several scathing lines he caws through the song. Half Believing and Life Song continue in that vein, refining the portrait of downtrodden, disenfranchised America. The subversive military-esque snare rolls on Estimate send a clear anti-war message, and Comanche Moon laments the death and destruction inflicted on the Native American community.

Death Song's sonics are what we've come to expect from the band - hypnotic drums, vocals soaked in reverb and crunching blues riffs - but it's the record's forthrightness that makes it the intoxicating listen it is. It's a definite step up from 2013's Indigo Meadow and a great return to form for The Black Angels.