Christian Bland & The Revelators released their third album, The Unseen Green Obscene in the summer of 2014. The album continues Bland’s trend of digging into mid 60s garage and psychedelia nugget styled sounds. On this release he pays tribute to many of his influences, wearing them on his sleeve. “Syd Barrett Blues”, “Diddley Stomp” and “Brian Wilson” all echo Bland’s influences through his own psychedelic filter. Elements of The Black Angels, Bland’s main band are heard sporadically throughout this release, but The Unseen Green Obscene shows Christian Bland & The Revelators standing on their own. Songs such as “The Last Summer” drip with echoes of reverb, the sounds of 13th Floor Elevators and The Beach Boys, “Daughters Of The Sun” is a six minute drone featuring reverberations blurring the lines of psychedelia and The Cramps, and “Gnostic Blues” features crunchy guitar fuzz and sliding basslines. Bland pays homage to his love of reverb literally, with the sounds explored on “The Reverberation Appreciation Society” with the lyrics and its title. It is also the name of his own label. In a fuzzed out fashion, The Revelators pay tribute to their love of motorcycles on the track “CB160”.
“Alone In Deer Park” is a lethargic trip, which reveals a haunting melody amongst the guitar lines that sound like they are from a 60s horror film, just before the enemy attacks. “Lifeboat” ends the album in a psychedelic folk fashion. At times the vocals on this track and on several others reflect a distance or disconnect from the songs. This is something that is noticeable on The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, but on this album Christian Bland & The Revelators combine this with sunnier sounding rhythms and dark lyrics for dramatic effect. The album’s artwork features a combination of white, red and green colours, which look like they could be abstract sound waves or birds, The Unseen Green Obscene takes flight in a wave of sounds. The sounds on this album separate this band from Bland’s other projects, most notably The Black Angels who do incorporate all the elements mentioned here, but they also seem to a attach a different type of heaviness to their music. The Unseen Green Obscene shows Bland taking his songwriting to a different place. The songs found here take us to a place that blurs the lines that we have known, a rearranging if you will. The Unseen Green Obscene takes us somewhere in between.
Saturday Night Play List:
1. Christian Bland & The Revelators - Gnostic Blues
2. UFO Club - Wolfman
3. Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds - Haunted Head
4. The Echo Bombs - King Of Uncool
5. Run Coyote - Only Human
6. Guitar Army - Cruel World
7. The Stray Cats - Built For Speed
8. Paul Camplain - Nicotine
9. The Pretty Things - Get Yourself Home
10. The Black Delta Movement - Ivory Shakes
11. The Aquadolls - Tweaker Kidz
12. The Ketamines - Stay Awake
13. Modern Vices - Keep Me Under Your Arms
14. The Mandates - Wastin’ Time
15. Butthole Surfers - Sea Ferring
16. Scratch Acid - The Greatest Gift
17. The Dirty Nil - Cinnamon
18. Viet Cong - Pointless Experience
19. The Nelsons - Never Hated Fun
20. Those Rogues - Wish I Could See You Again
21. Bradfords - Together We Have Stayed
22. Dum Dum Girls - Bhang Bhang, I”m A Burnout
23. Tire Swing Co. - Happy Valentines Day
24. Beastie Boys - Something’s Got To Give
25. Generation X - Stars Look Down
26. The Hot Nasties - This Is Unlove
27. The Dirty Pretty Things - Deadwood
28. The Libertines - The Delaney
29. The Libertines - The Boys In The Band
30. The Velvet Underground - European Son (Alternate Version)
To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for January 17. Or subscribe to Revolution Rock as a Podcast.
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