Earthbound by Kanaan

For lovers of psychedelic rock and space rock with truly heavy tones, here's  Kanaan's 2021 album, Earthbound.

I deemed this album excellent on first listen, then mind-blowing on the second, and then it became a masterpiece of Northern Prog.

This is a psychedelic trio with a sound influenced by jazz and originating primarily from jamming, but not only that. Along with great riffs, there are jams, great compositions and structured songs, but also improvisation and experimentation.

This album is heavier, however; forget about jazz, whose philosophy, creativity, and artistic gesture remain, but the sounds aren't absolutely jazz.

An album that powerfully highlights the union of heavy and distorted sounds with psychedelia.

Earthbound is aggressive, characterized by a slow, heavy sound with low tunings, a powerful electric bass, melodic passages, and a production that recalls more vintage sounds, with (intentional) room noises, the jack coming off, the amp fading, the electronic noise of silence.

Distorted guitar tones and heavy bass lines, great execution that doesn't leave the melody in the background, but not always, great exploration of sounds without sacrificing complexity, a great naturalness and spontaneity despite the beautiful structure.

- The album opens with "Prelude," a short introductory track with a psychedelic mood bordering on space rock that immediately announces the next song.
- "Return to the Tundrasphere," a screaming song, distorted guitars and destroyed drums, smashed cymbals, takes a psychedelic break with muted bass and drums and an eclectic, dissonant, almost out-of-tune guitar solo that builds to a harsh restart, distorted deep bass. Fantastic.
- Pink Riff starts off chaotically, something broke in the rehearsal room (it seems), and then a pressing rhythm kicks in with basic guitar riffs and notable space synth sounds, sudden breaks, and the rhythm section goes crazy like the guitar in its infinite solo. Monstrous.
- Bourdon starts off pressingly with a more structured and melodic pace. The guitar is dense and full of sustain but not chaotic and distorted to the limit like in the previous songs. It's a jam in which the drums are enriched with beautiful variations on the theme. Imposing keyboards and mellotron. The riffs in these songs are powerful and compelling, and the variations introduced with their contrasting and sudden breaks are truly surprising. A brilliant piece for the density of dissonant interventions and noises, always in line with the song. There's even room for an almost clean chorus, it could be a recording error :) But it's not.
- Mirage, psychedelia with distant percussion and echoing guitar right from the start, you expect an explosion, a bang. But no, this time it stays on topic and ends without any sudden changes. Nice atmosphere even when only the guitar remains...
- Mudbound opens side B, the longest song, a deep and disturbing drum line, with super-distorted bass, distorted guitar riff, a sci-fi movie march, when the monster arrives and is about to smash everything. What a groove and what tension. The song becomes more complex in the middle section, the drums stop tracing the main theme and begin to vary, with offbeats and incursions on the higher toms, the others follow suit, the song grows in intensity but slowly. It's a jam. I'd like to be there to see them give their best without losing the pattern and without overwhelming or ruining everything, which is often the case if you don't know how to jam, and they don't, they go straight into their lack of direction, keeping the song, the groove, the transport high. Then they take a break with a few synths and guitar... but the drummer still has something to say and plays underneath it (I used to do it too but they almost beat me)... the song then regains structure, if he wants to play, let's just let him play :) and the restart is very long, lasting over a minute, constantly building. And then the explosion. Slower and harder tempo. The guitar solo, as chilling as it is chilling, arrives from Grove, very clean this time, he's telling us "what do you think, I don't need distortion to play, now I'll show you." And he does it spectacularly. A song that seemed like a jam but I discover it has a beautiful structure. They've fooled me. Big time. A masterpiece that's worth the album.

- Crash is a sequence of... Crashes... very long, low, distorted guitar sounds, which vary in tone and intensity and are punctuated by sudden interludes of percussion and drums and short riffs and bass and synth hits, all of this for the entire 5 minutes, or rather 4.5 minutes, because at the end the drummer breaks down and goes out of style. Beautiful!

- No Star Left Unturned starts with a distorted guitar with very long sounds and a continuous drum roll, the bass creates a low and fast rhythm, the drums a continuous and pressing tempo, the synths a very psychedelic, uninterrupted, hypnotic yet overwhelming ride until a plane with helicopter propellers and a spaceship engine glides by. I don't know how they played it, but they did. The guitar closes with its final distorted wail. Spectacular.

There are realities in current music that are almost unknown. I was lucky enough to go to Norway and talk to more than one record dealer, and I asked for some good Norwegian music, the local prog scene, which I knew was a very active one, full of great innovation and talent. This is one of them, and I highly recommend it. This band from Oslo rocks.

Tracklist

1. Prelude (1:35)
2. Return to the Tundrasphere (8:41)
3. Pink Riff (3:15)
4. Bourdon (7:24)
5. Mirage (2:51)
6. Mudbound (11:54)
7. Crash (5:16)
8. No Star Left Unturned (4:59)
Running Time: 45:55

Line-Up
- Ask Vatn Strøm - guitars, percussion, oscillations
- Ingvald André Vassbø - drums and percussion, Farfisa speed
- Eskild Myrvoll - bass, synthesizers, Mellotron, guitar