Monday 8 May 2017

Green Yeti - Desert Show (Album Review)


Release date: April 21st 2017. Label: Cursed Tongue Records. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

Desert Show – Tracklisting

1.Black Planets (part 1) 04:57
2.Black Planets (part 2) 05:59
3.Rojo 10:12
4.Bad Sleep (part 1) 04:55
5.Bad Sleep (part 2) 15:13

Members:

Bass: Danis Avramidis
Guitar & Vocals: Michael Andresakis
Drums: Giannis Koutroumpis

Review

Sometimes I feel very lucky to live in a period like this where, very often, fantastic bands emerge from the inflated-swamp of stoner/doom. To think about it, however, what is not ?

Be clear, I know very well all the difficulties behind the birth of a musical proposal but, unfortunately, there are bands that do not even try to be a minimum original. It's all about running one with the other, in a game where, often, nobody wins.

Fortunately, this is not the case of Green Yeti!

To be honest, I knew the band but I never heard anything until Steve told me to review their new stunning album, Desert Show, released by Cursed Tongue Records. Green Yeti is a powerful Greek trio from Athens that perfectly aligns to the array of bands like Purple Dino, Craang, 1000mods, Dope Flood, Void Droid or Naxatras. Michael Andresakis (Guitar and Vocals), Danis Avramidis (Bass) and Giannis Koutroumpis (Drums) were able to create a perfect mixture of sludge, doom and psychedelia as I have not been listening for long time. This Greek trio managed to blend Conan, High On Fire, OM, Colour Haze and My Sleeping Karma, merging doom and stoner with pills of psychedelia and krautrock.

The album is divided by two main parts, Black Planets (Part 1 and 2) and Bad Sleep (Part 1 and 2), divided by Rojo. The album sounds great, incredibly great. A massive rhythm section beats the time to simple but pachydermic guitar riffs, able to suddenly go to very psychedelic territories. To be honest, the first song, Black Planets Part 1, differs a bit from what is, after all, the true soul of Desert Show, leaving a little spied on what will come next, Black Planets Part 2, which comes as a boulder, unexpected compared to what was heard before. Imagine Conan playing High On Fire, this is Blank Planets 2.

Rojo is a song that represents, in my opinion, the perfect blend of how good Green Yeti can be. This song is by no doubt perfect. Sound, arrangement, composition and singing are masterfully mixed in a song that, despite the length (about 10 minute), is never monotonous.

Rojo leaves the passage to the two closing tracks, Bad Sleep Part 1 and 2, where the riffage becomes more aggressive and the singing (despite all) simply spectacular, with the voice of Michael sometimes remembering that of Kurt Cobain. The album closes with Bad Sleep Part 2, a song starting in pure OM style, with a hypnotic bass line that opens to a song later completely different from what we could expect.

After listen carefully this album of Green Yeti, I am increasingly firmly convinced that, in music, one must strive to find those stylistic and sound compromises that can make an album play an overhang over others. We are not facing a masterpiece, or THE masterpiece of Green Yeti but, believe me, this album as a whole sounds damn perfect. The monotony of a hyper-abused and stale composition gives way to the fantastic imperfection in the originality of Desert Show. Highly recommend.

Words by Bruno Bellisario

Desert Show is now available to buy on CD/DD now. Vinyl will be released by Cursed Tongue Records very soon.

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