Customer Reviews

Phoenix Album

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Warlocks understand the importance of melody in psychedelic music. These guys write amazing songs and are one of the leading lights (along with Brian Jonestown Massacre, Photon Band, and Elf Power) in this movement.

Joyful drug references abound, kick-ass walls of guitar, solid back beat and a voice that sounds like it's coming from the backseat of your '73 baracuda. This is great summer music, so by all means BUY THIS DISC!

The Warlocks remember they are named after the pre-Velvet Underground unit. The first song here, "Shake the dope out", is a briliant tribute to the Velvet's "Foggy Notion", though this is only one asset of the band which is really not into revivalism. These guys, four guitar players, two drummers plus keyboard player are rocking as serious devils eager to activate their fires. "Cosmic letdown" shows how Hawkwind could have become fashionable and not boring. And again, this is so different, the sound is huge, tremendous bass and a feeling of genuine enjoyment. My favorite tune, "dope feels good", is an incredible pulsing beat grooving through the ever changing voices of the artists, twisting their necks in passing to the Daft Punk cliches. More than 60 minutes of music on 10 songs, the Warlocks are like incandescent lava !

that's what you would be saying if you didn't own this album. just get it and you'll save a fortune, not to mention the health factor. 10 solid rock songs that don't let up. takes you back to the lazy days of mick jagger's burried vocals, and even some beatles/bowie glitter and pop. saw them at cmj in new york, wondered if it was like this for the velvet underground. i know that sounds trite these days, but... hell, they're really good.

I'll tell you what some music is...
Legal drugs.
Some music...spiritually, emotionally, and physically...can indeed get you high. Hendrix himself said that music can be so subliminal, that you can do anything you want to the audience with the monsters you have created.
Today's music scene is layed out like a graveyard. Old skeletons have come out of the closet. One band sounds like Television, another sounds like The Stooges, another sounds like Blondie, and the list goes on and on. You could probably name the bands above that have pinched their ancestors' sounds. Some of those bands are good. Some aren't.
The Warlocks are one of the good bands. Their music is dope, as in the drug. "The Dope Feels Good" is a 4-minute ode to the San Fransisco Haight-Ashbury jam sessions. The fuzzy organ drone sounds like a happening...like an electric kool-aid acid test. "Shake The Dope Out" can be compared to all the past greats, just like you have read and heard before. The Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead...but this is one band that can stand up to their inspirations. They have an originality all their own. No band today sounds like The Warlocks. They rock, and they live what they preach. They talk the talk and walk the walk. Tjeir album is a tale. One song can make you larger. Another can make you small.
Just ask Alice...when she's 10 feet tall.
I hear Woodstock. I hear Jefferson Airplane playing a free music/free soup concert to a crowd of 15. I hear flowers being put into the barrels of guns. I hear a crowd chanting revolution. It's all in there. Their music is what I always wished I could have experienced back when our country was changing...when everything was new. This is a band that can be enjoyed by today's generation, as well as my father's. And it's still cool...or groovy.
It's the sound of the past, and the sound of the future. Rock and roll, Warlocks.

I found out about these guys in Magnet magazine last year, subsequently, I saw them in Atlanta in June 2002. I was completely blown away by the mood and pure ROCK of their live show. I picked up Phoenix after a show in Nashville (that I missed), and it has been in constant rotation in my CD player ever since. The comparisons to the Velvets and Spacemen 3 do apply, but the Warlocks are making music that sounds fresh to the untrained ear. If you're looking for the perfect kick-... album to play at night, pick up Phoenix.

Get out the lava-lamps and be prepared to be taken on a mystical acid-drenched journey led by California upstarts The Warlocks. This kind of psychadelic revival isn't new (Spiritualized, early Verve) but seems to even be more potent this time around with it's infusion of whirlwind Jesus and Mary Chain-type guitar riffs. Still trippy, but the dreamy-eyed gazes haved turned into fist-pumps and head bobs...this stuff rocks folks, this stuff grooves. Yet there is a chill-out kind of vibe that evokes images of couch lounging, black-lights and the liquid visualizations of the late 60's. Not only does Phoenix rock, it's just sounds, well...cool, in a dark Velvet Underground kind of way. Some might draw immediate comparisons to Spacemen 3 and spacerock, but regardless, this sure sounds alot better this time around.

Although it was released late this year, this is definitely a band/CD that everyone will probably be hearing more about in 2003. It seems like the past is the new tommorow, or in The Warlocks case, the present, and I suggest buying the CD now before the hype-machine gets to it...and while the scent of incense is still fresh in the air.

This record rocks. I am seeing these guys soon and cannot wait. Trippy garage rock that doesn't exist in this decade...except here. Think Pink Floyd meets the Velvet Underground. I don't want those comparisons to take away from the band's own original talent and sound. The combination of raw rock energy with tripped out pop melodies is amazingly cool. Get this now and stop being boring and predictable.

well, I thought I would use all the cliches everyone else has already used. This album hits all the marks- "Sister Ray", My Bloody Valentine, Spaceman 3, Sleep, ect... Well worth your time if this is your sort of thing, although with 10 people in the band I'd like to hear it!