This single-track CD is limited to 130 copies – each hand-numbered – and they’re being given away for free – so who knows, maybe they’ve all been taken by now. If so, don’t fret, as ‘Loose Trigger’ is also available online and, for helpfulness, it’s even embedded at the end of this review.
Sonic Rising, with former members of Oxford psych bands Spiral 25 and Lucifer Sun, have dubbed themselves a ‘sound machine’, and that term neatly sums up where they’re at. They’re not so much a band creating traditional songs in a modern idiom; instead, they’re one that creates soundworlds, taking the garage punk of the mid-to-late 1960s (a la anything and everything from no end of Pebbles or similar compilation albums) and feeding it through a druggy, hazy blender. Sonically, ‘Loose Trigger’ is similar in feel to Spacemen 3 and Loop, and shares the former’s style of lyrical delivery along with their bassline drops and melodies that lead us around what would otherwise be a pretty relentless drone. (Relentless drone is a positive thing, by the way). That combination of influences in turn brings to mind Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or Brian Jonestown Massacre – modern psychedelia that pays homage to several waves of acid-tinged music that went before.
It’s not the most polished or finished tune in terms of recording and delivery, but that may be to Sonic Rising’s credit – the rough sound provides an adequately grubby, dank feel that fits this kind of music perfectly, recalling the Spacemen 3 demos found on bootleg album Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To. There’s some subtle organ filling out the sound low in the mix, and it’d be nice if that were more apparent – it could layer on an aspect of (for want of a better term) psych mayhem that would up the 60s-ness and happily close the circle of influence in a way that may well lead to something more unique.