confusedbyjazz
Guitars are much more prominent on this release, leading to fifteen fuzzy, riff-heavy songs that are reminiscent of 70's-era hard rock. It's a perfect creative choice to combine with the band's trademark psych interludes and afrobeat drumming.
Definitely Here Lies Man's best album to date.
Favorite track: Underland.
Tom Museth
To stretch the conceit one more time: HLM's latest is more Sabbath, less afrobeat. And it's epic. There are riffs on this album that could crush planets. The last two albums felt like cool experiments, but this seems the natural heir to their 2017 debut.
Favorite track: Underland.
Four albums in, the convenient and generalized catchphrase for Here Lies Man’s erudite sound — if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat — might seem a little played out. But Ritual Divination is perhaps the best rendering of the idea so far. Particularly on the Sabbath side of the equation: The guitars are heavier and more blues based than before, but the ancient rhythmic formula of the clave remains a constant.
“Musically it’s an opening up more to traditional rock elements,” says vocalist/guitarist/ cofounder Marcos Garcia, who also plays guitar in Antibalas. “It’s always been our intention to explore. And, as we travelled deeper into this musical landscape, new features revealed themselves.”
The L.A. based band comprised of Antibalas members have toured relentlessly following their breakout 2017 self-titled debut. Their second album, You Will Know Nothing and an EP, Animal Noises, both followed in 2018. Third album No Ground To Walk Upon emerged in August 2019. All of them were crafted by Garcia and cofounder/drummer Geoff Mann (former Antibalas drummer and son of jazz musician Herbie Mann) in their L.A. studio between tours. Ritual Divination is their first album recorded as the full 4-piece band, including bassist JP Maramba and keyboardist Doug Organ.
Ritual Divination continues with an ongoing concept of HLM playing the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, with each song being a scene. “It’s an inward psychedelic journey, the album is the trip,” Garcia says. “The intention and purpose of the music is to create a sonic ritual to lift the veil of inner space and divine the true nature of reality.”
Likewise, musically and sonically, the album is self-reflexive. “On this album the feel changes within a song,” Garcia says. “Whereas before each song was meant to induce a trancelike state, now more of the songs have their own arc built in.” Similarly, the guitar sounds themselves herein eschew the fuzz pedals of previous recordings, going for the directness of pure amp overdrive and distortion using an interconnected rig of 4 amplifiers. And, here, the well-versed live band is able to record as a unit, giving it much more of a live and dynamic feel.
Rough Trade named the band’s self-titled debut in their prestigious Top 10 Albums of 2017. BBC 6 & Classic Rock Magazine deemed it among the year’s best, as well as countless other press outlets singing its praises. Each subsequent album furthered the band’s reputation for genre-smashing rhythmic experimentation, topping many year-end lists as well as earning features from countless metal and indie rock outlets, plus cover stories in weekly papers.
“We’re very conscious of how the rhythms service the riffs,” Garcia explains. “Tony Iommi’s (Black Sabbath) innovation was to make the riff the organizing principle of a song. We are taking that same approach but employing a different organizing principle: For Iommi it was the blues, for us it comes directly from Africa.”
Ritual Divination will be available on LP, CD and download on January 22nd, 2021 via RidingEasy Records.
supported by 72 fans who also own “Ritual Divination”
Amazing album. Propably the best of 2020...Loved it man. Amazing riffs. Bass and Guitar sounded tight. And drums....maaaannn!!!Smokin' hot. Chris Lowrider
A terrifically woozy slab of psychedelic stoner rock, where big riffs grind against saxophones, omnichords, and more. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 17, 2018
The video for "Theurgist," from True Widow's forthcoming "Avvolgere," is as prismatic & hypnotic as the song it accompanies. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 15, 2016
supported by 69 fans who also own “Ritual Divination”
Complete focused intensity with waves of sound experimentation and complex compositions. Which is kind of counterintuitive for a "stoner band" right? Except that's a tossed-off, lazy as shit tag for something this psychedelically awesome. I don't know man... maybe early Pink Floyd is also considered "stoner" music. It's still fucking great. bcb723