Lacertilia – Transcend

 

 

Lacertilia – Transcend
Majestic Mountain Records – 2025 
Stoner, Metal, Psych, Punk, Doom
Rated: ****

Some of you know that there’s a point in every trip, where reality starts to break up and melt. The universe starts to vibrate at a different level and glimpses of what the edge might be can occur. Well, Transcend, the new album by Welsh cosmic marauders Lacertilia hits that exact frequency! These freaks from the Cardiff heavy underground have already spent much of the decade past dragging their stoner-psych gospel from dark and dusty basements to venues across the UK. And with Transcend they should be set to take it to stages across the globe. Especially with Majestic Mountain Records now backing their crusade. 

On Transcend they sound like they’ve broken through the haze and the clouds and found that the gods of volume were waiting on the other side with golden chalices full of riffs. The woozy and folky incantation Archaic Oscillations opens the album and feels like a warm sunrise after a three day peyote ritual in the desert. After that we go boom, and following We Go Here truly detonates, riffs erupt, drums quake and we hear a manic preacher screaming around like a sweat-drenched prophet in a ruined chapel. There’s no singing here, this is commanding and demanding and zealously sermonizing his stories. The chapel almost collapsing entirely from the grinding bass and quaking drum grooves. 

By the time cathedral like, ten and a half minute long middle track, Nothing’s Sacred rolls in, you will start to believe. Believe Lacertilia have found the main nerve. Echoes spiraling and throbbing, everything drenched in reverb, washing over you like gigantic waves of bliss, lifting you up and making you feel like you are floating high above all the ruins of civilization, watching the earth itself breathe in slow motion. Final apocalyptic event The Sun Is The Key, blows it all wide open, starting earthy and languid, building gradually, and then turning into a blazing cosmic exorcism that obliterates everything and leaves nothing but feedback and blinding white light. 

The DNA of legendary bands like Orange Goblin, Monster Magnet and even The Doors might be coursing through their veins but Transcend is a hundred percent Lacertilia. Welsh fuzz punks turned cosmic prophets. And with their new revelation that is Transcend, they might reach the furthest parts of the stoner psyche, colliding it all with a messy and magnificent mixture of doom, punk, stoner and mysticism. They have seen the other side, they have dipped their toes over the edge. And with Transcend you might get a momentary glimpse as well. Turn it up loud and hold on, cause reality will not be around once side B hits… 

(Written by JK)

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