The Flower Eaters - The Spectre Loiters

The first album from this two man London group mixes classic space rock sounds with Klaus Schulze like sequencer led synth extrapolations to produce an open inviting sound.

Stretched phased guitar chords invites us into The Flower Eaters' universe, languorous phased soloing leading into mid-paced riffage that thankfully stays well outside metal territory, Vitamin BC slightly reminiscent of mid-90s Porcupine Tree. The Schulze influence looms large over Hyperspace Mood, and there is also a feel of Quark period Hawkwind.



Suitably distant and swirly vocals feature briefly on Bend The Rainbow whose muddy caveman riffing recalls the heady days of The Rainbow, Finsbury Park circa 1973. You can almost smell the patchouli, and I'm sure that was Stacia I saw, grooving in the corner to Clearlight Symphony. If Jam 2.0 were played at twice the speed it would have made a good rave tune. As it is, it stays in the chillout zone where it shares a bong with an Ozric or three.

After this we head across Le Manche and end up travelling the autobahn for a few hundred klicks as Euro sequencers take charge, Microdots being well into an early Kraftwerk vibe. The album ends with Hyperreality Doom, which as its title suggests rocks out, but in a fashion much faster than that normally associated with "doom" and is a fitting end to the journey, although the ending seems unnecessarily abrupt, almost as if the tape ran out, but maybe that was deliberate? If so, I don't think it quite worked.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that a young modern audience would be aware of all the sounds I've listed as references, unless their grandads' were old hippies, and if it leads to a new audience for good ol' spacerock, then I'm all for it. The sound on my downloaded review copy is not that good, being a bit fuzzy and too muddy in places, but one hopes this is just down to the inferior quality of my low bitrate download over the physical CD. Overall a fine debut effort from this young group of apprentice stoneheads, and it will be interesting to see where the trip takes them next.


Oh, and the guys would like it known that they were never an Avril Lavigne covers band!

Listen to some tracks on myspace.

Buy the CD here.

Tracklist:
1. Vitamin BC
2. Hyperspace Mood
3. Bend the Rainbow
4. Jam 2.0
5. Frozen Technology
6. Microdots
7. Buttercups
8. Hyperreality Doom

Line up:
Thomas Perryman - guitars, synthesiser, bass, and vocals
Leo Pérez - drums