Reviews: Naxatras, The Same River, Mind Erasure, Trailer Park Girl (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

Naxatras - IV (Self Released)

The fourth album from Greek psych/proggers Naxatras, sees them expanding their scope yet again. What was once a trio of jam rock journeymen, exploring the realms of mind expanding music, is now a four piece adding synths/organs/keys to the mix, for yet another shift in their sound. Featuring John Delias (guitar/vocals), John Vagenas (bass/vocals), Kostas Charizanis (drums/percussion) and Pantelis Kargas (keys/synths), Naxatras have been steadily moving forward in their own expressive creativity, recently featured in one of the Onassis Foundations, Stages A/Live shows where they provided and audio visual feast from rural Akontisma in Kavala. IV is a bit more song focussed than their previous feasts, heavily influenced by bands like Pink Floyd, Camel, Hawkwind and King Crimson. 

The swirling rock jams give way to esoteric, shimmering atmospherics, some punchy heavy rocking  and shorter, more direct run times, away from their previous penchant for a labyrinthine workouts, especially on their previous album. Not that these tracks lack any body, there's plenty of instrumental prowess on offer, the inclusion of the keys/synths making Naxatras' fourth record that bit more ambitious than before. A track such as Omega Madness is drenched in Hawkwind; quark, strangeness and charm, driven by a throbbing bass with twitchy synths throughout. Radiant Stars brings the style of funk Nile Rodgers would groove to, though Horizon is a bit more ethereal, though it phases into chunky rocking and one hell of a guitar solo.  

Each album from the band has been very much analogue based but here they have brought in much more modern elements, Journey To Narhamon featuring a bit of synthwave Floyd as Eva Seitanidou brings some vocals that also make me think of Aphrodite's Child. As The Answer has yet more Pink Floyd (pre-Dark Side) sounds coming through, it's one of the many songs with vocals as even though Naxatras love an instrumental, letting their virtuosity and craft shine through. This fourth album has more vocals than before, balancing out the record a little bit more. Naxatras improve with every album, but on IV they have outdone themselves, an incredible psychedelic prog rock experience. 9/10  

 

The Same River – Weight Of The World (Electric Talon Records/Sliptrick Records)

Founded in just 2019, Athenian foursome The Same River dwell in the hallucinogenic realms of bands such as Sabbath, Uncle Acid, Monster Magnet and countrymen Nightstalker. Consisting of Diamond PR (Vocals, Guitars, Synths), Theodore Ntilgeris (Guitars), Dimitris Georgopoulos (Bass) and Fivos Katsifloros (Drums, Percussion). The Weight Of The World is their first full length studio album, their previous record Live At The Black Box was ‘live-in-the-studio’ EP to show what The Same River can do, however Weight Of The World is this ambition fully realised. 

What we have on this record is 8 (9 on the digital edition), tracks of psychedelic doom, from the opening duo of Intro/Crossing The Rubicon and The Oath Of The Fire Bringer there’s such a strong Monster Magnet level of head fucking that you’d be forgiven for thinking this was them. Swirling riffs, throbbing basslines and insistent percussion all feature heavily with the fuzz lingering for moments after the tracks finish. The Same River and the final song We The People… both are focussed on long slow brooding and hypnotic elements. 

Things get almost shamanic on Voyage/The Great Sea, the ethos of the band built on philosophical lyrics and transcendent musical visions, of course rooted in those 60’s vibes, the band preaching love tolerance and understanding as well as their countries deep history with philosophy all through the the power of riffs. If you’re not up to date with your Heraclitus, Aristotle, Socrates or Plato or the mythology surrounding Sisyphus or Prometheus, never fear as you’ll still get to indulge in some great psych/doom rocking from this Athenian band. My advice is to pick up this album along with Naxatras, go up into the wilderness and just tune out man! 8/10

Mind Erasure – Connive (Self Released)

There’s a little bit of turmoil around this debut record from Corfu based metal band Mind Erasure. They have been around since 2007 but there have been numerous line-up changes in that time, the most recent being founding member Dimitris Garnelis, who left shortly after the album was recorded, leaving just Vasilis Koskinas (drums) and Lampros Stathis (bass/vocals) in the band along with new guitarist Spyros Servos. 

This trio play blackened death metal, but despite being a trio this album has very cinematic sound, the instrumental Proem opening with layers of orchestral sweeps and acoustic guitars to build drama, for what I believe is a conceptual record. There’s a lot of influence from bands such as Behemoth and Immortal, tremolo picking and squawked vocals but then there’s big whacks of death metal too with Azrael and Connive, coming from the more epic side of bands such as Bloodshot Dawn and Fleshgod Apocalypse, the huge choir bringing a sense of scale as the cinematic style shifts into the bludgeoning Mind Erasure, that has all the traits of Behemoth. 

Add to this the little spoken word parts and Connive is quite a well-rounded blackened death record that tries it’s hardest to not sound like just three guys playing fast riffs, adding layers of strings and choirs to tracks such as Last Stand, which along with the symphonic sounding Cataphasia features guest vocals from Toni Hatakka of Hanging Garden. Rounding out the album is a three song suite that links everything together that has come previously. An album such as Connive is impressive if not a little overdone, but there’s going on for the long gestation period to be warranted as with each play you uncover something else to enjoy in these songs. 7/10

Trailer Park Girl – The Mixtape EP (Self Released) 

Sometimes you only need a couple of songs to get a feel for a band, this is usually why bands release EPs as their first records. Trailer Park Girl from Patras have followed this method and delivered The Mixtape EP after only being a band since mid 2021, they are also looking to release their full length I April but for now let’s give this EP a spin. On the first listen you can understand why they cite 60’s-70’s Brit rock as influences as the foursome are drawing from the British invasion as well as the alt/garage rock bands of Detroit, biting guitars and lots of fuzz. Although a name like The Mixtape to me indicates perhaps covers, the songs here are all their own and also there’s no wild curveballs that you may expect from a record with this name either, just four songs of focused, hip shaking rock that has been designed to get the toes tapping. 

Now there are two singer here, which does throw you off a little, but then I suppose it’s going for a sound similar to The Kinks, Jefferson Airplane and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as well. Singer Igiso Oikonomopoulou and guitarist Efstathios Messinis bring a harmonic sound to the vocals, as Messinis provides the choppy riffs. There’s more than hint of the Brit Pop scene from the early/mid 90’s too on the trippy Acid Ballerina which takes on the likes of Lush, while People Used To Talk About The Weather has an attitude similar to The Arctic Monkeys. Heavily inspired by British bands in the garage/Britpop/Indie scene The Mixtape EP displays that these Greeks have musical style that is quite unique in their country. Let’s see what the full length holds. 6/10