Orange Goblin Coup De Grace
By
Vinnie Apicella,
Contributor
Monday, August 26, 2002 @ 9:21 AM
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Orange Goblin's always been known as one of the more "colorful" characters to "grace" the TMC roster. TMC, a major leader in the rebirth of seventies' blues and bare back rock essentials, landed a big time talent with the arrival of Orange Goblin, a spirited UK fivesome that's as much about grime as they are about groove. Time Travelling Blues was their first breakthrough a few years back, and my first taste of this psychedelic sarcasm put to Sabbath-y riffs and reverb. As such it was a startling discovery -- a band could channel the spirit of a ghost -- rock past and present but without the accepted sleep-inducing agents! Astonishing. With The Big Black that followed, a heavier inkling came across, OG tempering their dead-on attack with a weightier denseness aided by another year's worth of inebriation and pressed nerves put to a pedal-pushing extreme.
Coup De Grace is their best, most decisive and sonically destructive work to date, with its punishing riffs blaring over a blood-curdling bass line and gargantuan grind. Led in by an illustrated crypt keeper-like personage, Coup De Grace is a vintage bronze-era comic of monstrous proportions to introduce listeners to the resulting bumpy ride of intoxicated insolence from the first moment of "Your World Will Hate This" -- a bold opening statement that damns itself if the rest doesn't follow through -- and before long it's a realized promise kept much to the dismay of the unaware.
Rare melody rises up on the likes of "Monkey Panic" and "Made Of Rats," the latter employing the vocal transmission of one John Garcia, he of previous Kyuss fame, a recognized leader in the Stoner/Doom Rock community; Mr. G can also be found toiling around "Jesus Beater," a Southbound soiree for his soul-selling hosts. And while unexpected surprises are nothing new when dealing with this thing -- kings of subtlety they are not -- a blood-drawing cover of the classic Misfits' "We Bite" follows up with a minute-long cessation of any and all previous ideals about the comparatively lethargic pace of the preceding -- took 'em a few seconds to get it going but once they do, lookout!
We can draw comparisons to a wealth of favorites of a faded-blue era who've been there, done that, moved out, and so on -- Obsessed, Kyuss, Electric Wizard, Sleep -- and Orange Goblin still manages to shrug it off and carve their own niche of playfully penned whiskey-soaked heavy rock anthems for those of a Marshall principle and unsound mind.
* * * 1/2
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