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Seven That Spells

The Death and Resurrection of Krautrock: IO

Written by: BV on 24/07/2014 22:25:53

Seven That Spells are a heavy psych/space/prog rock power trio based out of Zagreb, Croatia with a great line in self-promotion, describing themselves as a "modern, aggressive psychedelic wall of sound incorporating polymetrics and occasional Viking funeral rites, hailing from the 23rd century where rock is dead." – To be a bit more straightforward, the band has been releasing a steady and impressive line of albums from 2003 that all display different types of forays into the various corners of psychedelic music. Albums like “Superautobahn” and “The Men From Dystopia” are acclaimed to a point where you wonder why more people don’t know much of the band. But that’s usually how it goes within this realm of music – it’s simply too far out to reach the mainstream consciousness.

With “In II” the band starts off with a kazoo(?!) being blown over a massive piece of drumming before the band launches into a highly complex, eastern-tinged circular riff that is as repetitive as it is mindboggling. It’s highly technical math-prog coupled with repetitive rebellion of the kraut-rock scene. The rhythmic foundation of drummer Nikola Babic and bassist Jeremy White is pivotal in the success of tracks like this one, as the highly technical guitar parts of Niko Potočnjak would quite clearly fall hastily, and disastrously, to the ground were it not for their constant underlining of that display of virtuosity.

“Burning Blood” is another display of how this band transcends some of the most common psychedelic labels; In this case doing it by incorporating a sort of ritualistic throat singing to the sonic mayhem – perhaps nodding in the direction of the aforementioned ‘Viking funeral rites’? Either way, it adds a ritualistic sense of purpose to this enigmatic long-runner of a track which, with its 14 minutes, evolves from ritualistic chanting, over heavy riffing and back to ritualistic chanting with a spatial edge that only a guitar sounding like Potočnjak’s could ever really infuse a track like this with.

This album, apparently the second in a trilogy called “The Death and Resurrection of Krautrock”, is as mind-boggling as it is amazing. It is hard to fully comprehend, but for those of us who desire trippy, long-running space-rock exploits it seems like one of those albums one should not miss out on.

Download: In II, Burning Blood
For the fans of: Electric Moon, Acid Mothers Temple, Föllakzoid
Listen: Facebook

Release date 06.06.2014
Sulatron Records