BMA Magazine Albums of 2011, Looking Glass – III

[Independent]

You know, call it parochial, call it being a one eyed fan, call it what you will. I don't give a fuck. Canberra's Looking Glass are the best power trio in Australia and are top shelf world class players no matter how you slice it. The seven-track record kicks off with Heavy on the Hook and bassist and producer Lachlan Payne stamps his foot on your throat with the chops and authority of Australia's best rock bassist. You know you're in for it. Electric Mistress delivers the essential guitar solo of the year from 2.52 in the track, through an utterly face melting bebop deconstruction before kicking into a conjuration of Ritchie Blackmore before delving back into the strongest chorus on the record. Shores of Carcosa shows the band can create and wield an atmosphere full of Lovecraftian dread and melancholy, with a string section crying a lamenting harmony to the acoustic’s simple, haunting refrain. Not content to rest, Child of Vertigo goes High On Fire with pumping intensity, Spiral Architect drops all the Sabbath-fied riffs that hundreds of pretenders worldwide wished they had along with dynamic psychedelic turnarounds from Jimi's spaciest blues jams. Wizard or the Skull crushes the testicles of both the former and the latter and finally the record descends or ascends – depending on your opinion of true doom metal – to the band’s career heaviest moment while winnowing the hearing range of live audiences treated to its mantra in 2011. No band in Canberra peaks like they do onstage, no album in 2011 has matched its dynamo approach to its genre. Don't fucking miss it.