DOOMSQUAD

Total Time

BY Daniel SylvesterPublished Apr 27, 2016

9
Looking back, it's easy to view DOOMSQUAD's 2014 debut, Kalaboogie, as some sort of mystic primer, giving the trio a glistening base from which to craft something as structurally fractured but sonically coherent as Total Time.
 
Recorded in the deserts of New Mexico, the album's nine tracks feature musical explorations and ruminations that feel as daring as they do poised. Total Time's opening tracks ("Who Owns Noon in Sandusky" and "Pyramids on Mars") build onto polyrhythmic dance beats and fluid tempos before moving on to a pair of psych-heavy meditations ("Collective Insanity" and "It's the Nail That Counts, Not the Rope) and chant-heavy standouts ("Solar Ass" and "Eat the Love"). Bringing in a slew of guests to complement the album's weighty musicality, DOOMSQUAD integrate Fucked Up guitarist Mike Haliechuk's pulsating textures and Holy Fuck's Graham Walsh's claustrophobic production into their sound while allowing guest Mary Margaret O'Hara to deliver a fearless, Yoko Ono-ish vocal delivery on "The Very Large Array."
 
On Total Time, DOOMSQUAD bend their sonic identity as far as it can go, and it's as fascinating as it is perplexing.
(Hand Drawn Dracula)

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