Samsara Blues Experiment, the ultimately fitting, possibly the most suitable name anyone could come up with for such a brain-melting belter of a union of a few humans, who may indeed be human but their music is totally out of this space. Wanna see Buddha dancing to blues rock jams? Tie your belt. The third full length album of the band presents you their most psychedelic mediative form of rock'n'roll to date in their catalogue. Samsara, the cycles of rebirth in Hinduism and the never-ending blues jams have fused here to give birth to a stellar guitar-solos ridden record that I've happened to play so many times this week, it's unhealthy.
A few things make this band and in our case, record, very special for me, different from most bands mixing blues and stoner rock. To start with, the vocals are unique, and when I use this adjective I really mean it, you can't hear another dude to sound even remotely similar to Christian Peters. He has this empowering intensity in his voice that can throw you five miles away when he uses his voice to recite something loud like in Shringara, track one. Okay, maybe he's not reciting it in the most literal sense of the verb, but he sounds so powerful like the preaching of some high Hindu god. The guy makes the words sound like they come from the centre of the universe and they have the power to hit you hard even if you're not five miles high, resonating to the Earth and back to the black hole Scorpio where they come from. Peters's voice on "Waiting for the flood" is ranging from this slow-paced intense reciting to mellower and even slower to fit the guitar tone in the best way possible. At moments when he asks what if doom is here to stay, you really sit on your darn ass and think about it.
Another big highlight is the use of sitar and harp. Fuck knows sitar's use in stoner rock is the best instrument to make the gap between the listener and nirvana smaller. Samsara are one of the few bands that, being by the use of such instruments or whatnot, manage to invoke mountainous landscapes and the never-melting snow of Himalaya in your head, even if you just sit on your bed and stare at the ceiling. The quiet continuos presence of the sitar drone, layered with Behren's bass vibe and Eiselt's warm guitar sound create a wave that you can sleep on, waiting to be carried and awoken on some Eastern shore. Blues harmonics, double chorus, this album doesn't come short of fantastic at any point, both sides having it's more hard hitting and mellower points alike.
Just when I listened to this album ten times or more, I happened to notice that actually there is no song shorter than ten minutes. Take that, four tracks, overall length is around 45 minutes and you never notice because it all flows perfectly. But words are only harm and I can do this much to describe, check out "Waiting for the flood" for more accurate information.
