The Strange Attractors
Record Review
Reviewed by Austin Powell, Fri., Aug. 3, 2007
The Strange Attractors
(Rare Dust)
The storm gathers overhead, a bad omen lingering in the midnight air. "The world has moved again and left me off the beat," bellows the Strange Attractors' Kevin Pearce midway through "Under the Gun," as a haze of psychedelic guitars morph into smoke and fire and blacken the lungs. "Let go of everything that you know." Staring into the abyss, the Strange Attractors embrace just such chaos, exposing the darkness underneath the glam rock that defined their former outfit, Dead Sexy. The Austin quartet's eight-song debut rings gloom and doom, coursing a hypnotic undercurrent of hedonism and nihilism in the tradition of the Stooges and Velvet Underground. Opener "Bohemian Groove" lays the foundation of what follows: a swirling drone of textured guitars and rapturous drums, easily mistaken for the Black Angels, only darker, faster. "Revolutionary Suicide" and "Dark Star Serenade" bring the thunder, only eclipsed by closer "Day of Illumination."
