Black Tractor – The Wonders of the Invisible world
Band: Black Tractor
Title: The Wonders of the Invisible world
Label: Independent
Release date: 14 August 2020
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording
As silver, copper, iron, lead and tin are gathered into a furnace to be melted with a fiery blast, so will I gather you in my anger and my wrath and put you inside the city and melt you.I will gather you and I will blow on you with my fiery wrath, and you will be melted inside her. As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted inside her, and you will know that I the Lord have poured out my wrath on you.
When looking up information of this week´s pick Black Tractor, I came across what they themselves put up on their band´s profile. Ezekiel 22:20-22. Not being such a bible thumper myself I was forced to google the passage to see which one it was, and I was intrigued by the group´s imagination and ideas of how to get people´s attention.
“The Wonders of the Invisible World” released in the middle of this month and after having been originally interested by the description in a form of a bible passage I was secondly quite caught with the titles of the tracks, which seem to be just sort of random. “I can´t seem to wake my wife” is the first on the list with a storytelling rock intro. It sounds humorous and yet well performed and high quality music wise which continued into “Just like Fay Wray”. The vocals are more in the form of storytelling than actual singing continuing in “The Devil´s Waterfall” which ends with an interesting conversation about a bathroom mishap.
“Things we learned in New Jersey” is slightly slower and more lurking. It is somewhat the first change that has come along since the first track as the first five have mostly followed the same formula with groove and a bit of funk baked in. “Hosanna” struck me as a song I didn’t think I would find on this album at all as it starts out with just an acoustic guitar accompanied by a standing bass and a shaker as well as some female vocals backing it up. It’s certainly a welcome addition to the otherwise quite easily foreseen music. The southwestern melancholic feel is quite good.
“And to Mary a Sweet Goodbye” acts as an outro and mostly consists of scary music with weird grunting in the background. It’s quite odd; however it does work as a closure to this album. I got the feeling if I read the lyrics it would even make somewhat more sense.
Even if this album is filled with straight forwards rock metal, you still sense that this group knows how to make more music then is mostly shown off here. Interesting strays can be spotted from the red thread and the American ballsy attitude is certainly not missing. I question if it does hold up 11 tracks as it might be a little too much for me personally. Nevertheless, it is quite good and well performed. 7/10 Julia Katrin
7/10: Victory is Possible!
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