Skullflower

The Crucial Blast label couldn’t be a better home for Skullflower’s latest release of skull-crushing minimal noise as Orange Canyon Mind really is one hell of a crucial blast. Formed in mid-’80s, the UK group (led by guitarist Matthew Bower) staked out their canyon of choice — one filled with swirling whirlpools of cyclical feedback, layered atop doom-metal riffs — and became the first in a long line of minimal metal purveyors that has since included the influential ’90s group Earth and a host of more recently established droning harbingers such as Boris, Pelican and Sunn O))). Though Skullflower went on extended hiatus between 1996 and 2002 (during which time Bower founded the astounding psych-folk drone-smith collective Sunroof!) their highly relevant sensory attack is no less effective now than ever. Trance-inducing doses of hypnotic feedback are the order of the day here, with colourfully titled epic-length tracks like "Annihilating Angel,” "Vampires Breath” and "Goat of a Thousand Young” blending into each other like all those acid trips you did in high school. May Skullflower bloom in your mind for a thousand summers to come.