Album Review: The Black Angels - Indigo Meadow

After trimming their line-up down to a quartet, Texan psychedelic-drone rockers The Black Angels – who took their name from Velvet Underground's hit The Black Angel's Death – return with their fourth studio album, Indigo Meadow. 

Title track Indigo Meadow acts as a powerful introduction; a hypnotic guitar riff induces gentle oscillation, which slowly builds up to a more urgent body movement by the time the chorus strikes with its refrain, “always indigo, indigo meadow”, which will surely stick in the listener's brain for weeks to come. The first single from the album, Don't Play With Guns, comes shortly after, and the significance of the message seems truly emphasised when considering the horrific massacres that have occurred in recent times. Musically, it's the contribution from the organ that makes this track soar, with its demonic, high-pitched jabs sounding reminiscent to the iconic music from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. In true Black Angels style, the politically motivated themes continue in Broken Soldier, which appropriately begins with a marching tempo, countered with just the right amount of groove, supplied by an eerie guitar riff. Alex Maas suggests that the soldier will “never be the same when this over”, highlighting one of the many social consequences for soldiers after war. 

Being that the psychedelic era is well and truly over, one would think it would be difficult for a band of the 21st century to capture the spirit of the style; however, The Black Angels continue to quash such doubts as their career progresses. Indigo Meadow is completely engrossing from start to finish, and acts as a testament to their knowledge of genre, while simultaneously remaining accessible to audiences of our time.