Ascent

Forever keeping listeners guessing, Ben Chasney turns up the volume for this aggressive about-face after the moody, rootsy, and mild *Asleep on the Floodplain*. \"Waswasa\" begins on the attack, a feral guitar instrumental that takes the pointed edges of The Beatles\' \"Taxman,\" Neil Young\'s most anarchic moments, and the usual tonal assault of Comets on Fire and turns it into a five-and-a-half-minute blowout. \"Close to the Sky\" follows, with a south-of-the-border outlaw sense. The atmospheric \"Visions (From IO)\" evokes the Southern California Paisley Underground scene of the \'80s; its ghostly vocals recall Rain Parade and Opal with its reverb-laden psychedelia. \"They Called You Near\" further trips out the psychedelia with guitar tones and vocals emitting from what sounds like a subway tunnel. \"Solar Ascent\" and \"Your Ghost\" dial down for the bucolic charms of acoustic guitars. However, \"One Thousand Birds\" and \"Even If You Knew\" grind with crusty fuzz guitars adding a grungy component, truer to the word \"grunge\" than the bands associated with the term in the \'90s.

The core of Comets on Fire are all present on Ascent, and together they help old bandmate Ben Chasny pummel some new tracks and reconfigure several from his vast back catalog.

Apart from being the next best thing to a full-blown Comets reunion, Ascent is destined to rank amongst the year’s most potent psych-rock products.

Following the muted, pastoral Americana of 2010's Asleep on the Floodplain, the ever-shifting Six Organs of Admittance took another abrupt turn on Ascent, with the band’s only mainstay, Ben Chasney, pulling out some of his more heroic guitar moves for an album of sprawling full electric band exploration.

Adopting the maxim ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it,’ Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny opens his latest album with a big, bold guitar solo – a whole five and a half minutes of virtuoso fret fiddling, all told. Track two mixes things up, kind of: it’s still a five-minute guitar solo, but with a couple of extra minutes of moody psych preceding it.

Ben Chasny vehicle Six Organs of Admittance has been tagged "new folk," and the acoustic elements, gentle drones, and low-key vocals of 2011's Asleep on the Floodplain amply supported that description.

Prolific US guitarist Ben Chasny returns with his Six Organs project for a feast of psychedelia, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong>