16. Darkside, All That Noise (1990)

[2016 review here]

The Darkside (not to be confused with the 2010s electronica act DARKSIDE) was a spinoff of Spacemen 3, orchestrated by bass player Pete Bain (known as Bassman) with drummer Sterling Roswell (known as Rosco) and others. The Darkside had a vocalist, but he had split by the time this album was being put together, the band’s first of three. Bain steps up to the mic as necessary. His singing is subdued, closer to a plainsong style in effect. Maybe it’s the mix. At any rate the vocals do not matter here at all. What I appreciate most is the naked, almost spiritual fealty of the band and the album to electric guitar, the master of this house. It’s all so obscure I’m really not sure who is playing it—Bain? The internet doesn’t seem to know. But in a strange way the anonymity works to abstract and distill a pure form of psychedelia, the wandering spirit of electric guitar. Electric Guitar, we may as well call this player. Electric Guitar broods and lords its powers and struts about the stage of this soundscape. The album’s 6:19 instrumental opener, “Guitar Voodoo,” sets the tone and hits the high point: name-checking a few of Jimi Hendrix’s greatest hits in the title, with a rumbling ominous bass and snarling fuzzed-up guitar working out with wah-wah effects. Several songs on All That Noise are under three minutes, and several are duds, it must be said. The title tune is a sliver at 1:45. But the mood is consistent, somber and church-like. The tempos are sedate. Electric Guitar is the weapon of choice, pushed front and center. The best songs tend to be the longest, including a seven-minute cover of “Soul Deep,” which incidentally reminds us that the album is from the early ‘90s, when Alex Chilton was (rightly) being sanctified as an indie saint. The 6:10 “Love in a Burning Universe” is a variation, working more toward a hypnotic drone—it may be the track most reminiscent here of the drifting, dream-like spells of Spacemen 3 (and, later, Spiritualized, another spinoff). Electric Guitar more gives way to a keyboard organ, pointing the way for the swirling magnificence it achieves. But “Guitar Voodoo” remains the high point and signature song on All That Noise, announcing intent from the first notes of the bass, the first squall of Electric Guitar waking and coming to life. Picking out the notes by feel, sneaking in the wah-wah effects, and ultimately taking full command of the song. Another magnificent high point. Play loud.