Music Review// Dead Sea Apes – Lupus

Mmm…  gold. You may have noticed the trend for gold items recently from chocolate bars to Lego men but one format well worth it’s weight in gold is vinyl. To prove that point Dead Sea Apes recently released their 2012 E.P. Lupus on glorious gold vinyl. But when you consider that the music found beneath the shiny exterior is as hypnotically drone influenced as the limited release gold edition visually isn’t you have the perfect juxtaposition...

First track Pharmakon keeps the eerie intensity for it’s complete seven minute run and it’s a subtly beautiful moment. Were this an action movie the song would be the slow, deliberate creep down the main villains corridor with who knows what to be found at the end. Said end may well be the witchy psych drone of Knowledge and Conversation and it’s a long stop over for the filmic sixteen minute song to wind it’s way down.

The remainder of the album holds this pattern of intense psych drone melodies for long periods of time and you could easily get the idea you’re inside a particularly lucid and beautiful horror movie with the jazz length movements keeping the underlying tension right up there in your ear the whole way. The beautiful something to do with Death is a haunting high point – offering an industrial shimmer that lures you into the mix and simultaneously makes you look behind just in case there’s a stranger there.

More energetic is the short electric growl of Blood Knot, with the brooding industrial synth of Wolf of the Bees a must listen when it comes to compiling that MixTape to impress your mates. The whole of Lupus is indeed a triumph and would make great music for that quiet night with yourself and your very favorite person...

Reviewed by C. Agent.