Biblical - The City That Always Sleeps album review

Biblical’s second album sees them offset their crumbling, sludge rock ballast with an utterly hypnotic voyage into the gauzy psychedelic ether. Lacking neither vision nor ambition, The City… is a peyote-fuelled space rock western, cast in jangly guitars and moody, synth-driven interludes. Opener Mature Themes unleashes a barrage of driving, hard rock riffs meshed into galloping tempos and prismatic, wild-eyed fretwork. This is simply a launching point for what follows – an enrapturing journey into an emotionally arresting cosmos of strange textures, exotic melodies and spectral atmospherics. Tracks like Spiral Staircase and Fugue State point back to the measured brilliance of Pink Floyd’s earliest forays into LSD-inspired space rock experimentalism. The City… establishes Biblical’s startling capacity for alchemising the most familiar elements of 70s psychedelia with thoroughly modern notions of groove, space and melody. Best absorbed through headphones for maximum trippiness.