Acid Mother’s Temple and the Cosmic Inferno – Ominous from the Cosmic Inferno (Essence Music) Keith Boyd 1.6.8 
           When they are firing on all cylinders, every lineup from the Acid Mother’s Temple universe will kick you ass and blow your mind. The vast profusion of releases and tours means that as listeners we are privy to every turn in their artistic road. This of course can have its’ perils. Just think of it, Kawabata and the band(s) are letting you witness their every passing development and interest in real time, warts and all. I can’t think of a braver, more psychedelic statement than that. Given this tight-rope walk there are bound to be a few clunkers along the way. The wonder is just how few of those actually happen. My particular favorite AMT releases are the ones where they allow the spacey-er elements through and engage in long droning walls of sound. Many of these tend to happen on Kawbata Makoto’s “solo” discs but seeing as he uses the same general cast of characters as a band it’s sort of hard to tell exactly which ones these are. One of the newer lineups in the AMT world is, “Acid Mother’s Temple and the Cosmic Inferno”. From its’ inception the CI version of the group was a beast to reckon with. It seemed as though every album or show was a full-on assault on your sense driven by riff speed and walls of noise. This is not to suggest any unpleasantness whatsoever; I actually like big noisy affairs. But somehow beneath the CI version you could always hear a little something extra going on as well. On their new release, “Ominous from the Cosmic Inferno” they have given free reign to this epic and freaky otherness and as a consequence have put out one of their best albums ever.
            Composed of 6 longish tracks and sporting one of coolest album cover surprises ever (A THICK gatefold sleeve with an AMT monster pop-up in the middle!!) this album strangles the very threads of space and really hits you hard. Album opener, “Ecstasy in Hell” is the more typical CI sound. It’s a shredding monolith that threatens to fall apart at every build but some how magickally never does. Things head towards the autobahn from that point on. Krautrock/Kosmische/Primal is perhaps the best way to describe a big chunk of the album. A highlight is as always Higashi Hiroshi’s wonderful synth tweaking. His cosmic noodlings are always in full “switched-on” mode and they form the basis of rise, release and relapse that make this music so great. The mighty alchemist Kawabata Makoto really outdoes himself here. He lets the galactic impulse guide his solos and they stretch into alien tendrils cascading through your mind. Of course the whole deal would mean nothing if not for the mastery of the rhythm section. Shimura Koji, Tabata Mitsuru and Okano Futoshi hold this sucker together but never let it get stuck in a rut. They glide and guide as well as provide a thick bedding of bottom end and it’s on this bedding that the others jump up and down like hyperactive kids at a slumber party with too much Ritalin in the punchbowl. A big switcheroo takes place on the track “Omen Amen”. Here we get a break from the electric storm and veer off into dirgey acoustics. One thing is for certain just as much as the folks in AMT love to confront and bend the history and conventions of Rock, they are also masters of them. This track has little nods to early T-Rex as well as any acoustic guitar driven Prog you can think of from the past 30 years.
            “Ominous from the Cosmic Inferno” is a wonderful listen. You get a sample of some of the many faces that make up the AMT sound and aesthetic. There is the aforementioned Kraut and Prog influence. There are also touches of a Garage Band sound and of course the great walls of psychedelic WHOOSH that must be the liturgy worshipped in the Acid Mother’s Temple.  Blast this one some day after work when all of the hobgoblins of conformity and soul-crushing minions of CONTROL have been fingerprinting your mind and eroding your spirit. I promise you’ll feel better. At the very least you’ll scare the neighbors and that’s always a good thing.