Budos Band V

As menacing and unhinged as ever, the pride of Staten Island is back with their fifth full-length offering, V. Raw and absent of modern technological trappings, the Budos pick up where they left off with 2014’s “Burnt Offering,” and finds the Budos expanding on the brooding, fuzz-fueled riffs, whilst harkening back to the Ethiopian inspired rhythms and percussive proclivity that put Budos Band on the map. “Old Engine Oil,” a rocker at heart, kicks things into gear and delivers a high-octane burst of Budos mayhem. “The Enchanter” serves up a classic dose of upbeat afro-soul, drenched in a venomous assault of wall-melting proportions that leads you to the “Spider Web,” a rumbling ode to the Cowbell Colossus whose punctuated horn stabs take you on an untamed ride to the dark side of the spoon. The side closes with “Peak of Eternal Night,” whose odd time signature and haunting horns transport the listener to the peak of a menacing otherworldly landscape that’s further explored in the final track “Ghost Talk” – a guitar driven groover that gives way to an organ-washed space ritual beneath sun-summoning trumpet blasts.

Side Two opens with “Arcane Rambler,” an interstellar ramble across space and time that leaves the listener in cosmic purgatory. “Maelstrom,” released as a single shortly after the release of “Burnt Offering,” boasts waves of furious sonic power that batter the listener via a maw of snarling sea-foam bubbling with the power of the Budos. Soon darkness falls as “The Veil of Shadows” is draped across the land – in this realm of twilight one quickly loses their way, only to find themselves at a dusk-to-dawn pyre of budonian proportions. “Rumble from the Void” then pulls you into a percussive black hole of formless beat-worship. There are no horns to help you here, just the tentacles of rhythm that tirelessly pull you back into the void. “Valley of the Damned” closes the record, it’s twisting groove coupled with hypnotic drones of synth and horns transports you to a place of little hope and and even less reason.You’ve been warned…