True Widow
‘Circumambulation’
Relapse Records
It doesn’t seem too long ago that True Widow graced us with a long player. I guess it has something to do with the fact that music this laid-back is so timeless. It captures life in slow motion, leaving a form of stoned paralysis so brutal that you instantly crave more once the fix is delivered.
These Texan stonegazers have seriously upped the dose on this new offering. The medicated tones that made up their last release “As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth” back in 2011 were strong, but this three piece have delivered another slow-burning classic that is guaranteed to poach the circumference of your inner ear.
Kicking off with a murder ballad masterpiece by the ever-moving ‘Creeper’ their new collection of haunted darkness slowly drives into ‘S:H:S’, a comfortably numbing track picked for their latest promo video packed with Dan Phillips’ dulcet tones and deep nodding riffs. ‘Four Teeth’ is the closest to pop that you will find on this album with Nicole Estill’s vocal mesmerizing as they drip over the track; its economics may be simple but it will lodge inside your system like a bad dream. This is followed by an administered injection of sleepy drone and fuzzy stoner bliss that makes ‘Numb Hand’ feel short ahead of the stomping metallic throb from the riffs of ‘Trollstigen’, the longest track on ‘Circumambulation’. It’s fairly easy to get lost in the seven minutes that pass by making it one of the weakest of the pack unfortunately.
The pace picks up for ‘I:M:O’, but only by a feather. The light soundscapes here roll without vocals before ‘HW:R’ see Phillips and Estill join forces on verse and chorus duties perfectly. “I’ve done so many things with my time, or so I think…” says Phillips nonchanlty. It’s a phrase that belongs to us all and lyrically DP is speaking for everyone growing up on this track. Blissful, melodic and smoking from top to tail – it’s a perfect example of the beauty that these Dallas stoners can produce. The album winds down to a staggering low pace with the final fix of sleepy drone and fuzzy stoner bliss on ‘Lungr’. It’s heroin in WAV form and it should be your soundtrack of the summer. Stream it here.
9/10
Zac