Hollow Drifter – Devolve

 

 

Hollow Drifter – Devolve
Self released – 2024
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Prog, Garage
Rated: *****

There aren’t that many heavy underground gurus. The people that knew before it all came to pass. The outsiders, living by their own rules and giving us only momentary glimpses into their world. Often turning that one little taster into something prophetic. So, when a band records with one of those people, Guy Tavares in his fabled Bunker Studio, you better believe I will be paying attention. How high my regard for his projects, labels, bands like Santa Cruz and Orange Sunshine is, pales in comparison to the love I feel for the vague memories of that one night I ended up at this weird party, many many moons ago, he might or might not have instigated. And for the few times I had a chat with him after one of his, to my mind, legendary shows. And well to make this ode to Mr. Tavares a bit shorter, the Amsterdam three called Hollow Drifter did just that for their new four track release Devolve. They recorded down in the bunker, with Sir Tavares. And the result is something special! As soon as the intro guitar tones from opening track The Banner Has An Eye are accompanied by those maniacal drums, you feel the walls closing in, the roof coming down and the oppressiveness in all severity. The fog becomes tangible and the curtains will be pulled back on the great and secret show. The Kool-Aid might have been spiked, but that would not even have been necessary. The Banner Has An Eye is a vision inducing and oscillating trip, garage and psychedelic by default, this one track alone will put you in a different frame of mind. Demon’s Don’t Come From Below follows, goes even deeper, becoming submerged and slowly trekking through the viscose lava lamp soup. The jazzy and bluesy guitar lines becoming the melody, the lifeline, to hold on to as the nod becomes bigger and bigger. And not opting for a huge explosive ending but being confident that the atmosphere and all the wild guitar lines are all this composition needs, serves as more proof of Hollow Drifter being at home in their sound. Their garage side returns again with more energy as third track Blizzard Wizzard starts, soon coloring it all in with more sixties prog and proto doom. Mutating their sound back and forward and going wherever inspiration takes them, it’s Hollow Drifter to a fault and perhaps even more so on Devolve, which perhaps is also in part thanks to the guidance of Guy and his Bunker Studio. Venturing The Void goes the way of Blizzard Wizzard, but perhaps even a bit wilder and groovier. Highly danceable, becoming trance inducing with its drum ‘n bass rhythm, and its creaking melodies, that seem to have slipped through every crack and crevice, as they came in from out of the void and into the soul of Hollow Drifter. The combination of the four tracks, the listening session of more than forty five minutes becomes intoxicating and formidable. It’s the Hollow Drifter four we need to congratulate for this wild and wonderful Devolve record, but I think I can hear the added Bunker Studio environment and the guiding hand from the guru…  

(Written by JK)

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