Album Review: Orange Goblin – Frequencies From Planet Ten (1997, 2012 repress on translucent green vinyl)

Their only album as a 6 piece band. It was the only album with Duncan Gibbs, and I personally enjoy the uniqueness his keys add to the songs.

The Astral Project – What you might get if Kyuss was transported back to a festival in 1973 that featured both early arena rock bands and psychedelic holdovers. Then they all decided to blast off a drug riddled jam.

Magic Carpet – A little bit of Sabbathy awesomeness never hurt anybody.

Saruman’s Wish – More Sabbathy goodness. The guitar work reminds me a lot of Brownout. (I did a review of their album here)

Song of The Purple Mushroom Fish – By the title, I can only assume acid was involved. Instrumental and mellow. I love the wah pedal sound, so I love this by default.

Aquatic Fanatic – The pace jumps up about 68 notches on this one. It’s almost as if they were inspired by Faith No More on this track. Frenetic drumming and fast paced wah pedal soaked guitar. A real cool song.

Time to flip over the green slab of goodness.

Lothlorian – A peaceful acoustic number. The keys of the aforementioned Duncan Gibbs set this apart.

Land Of Secret Dreams – Not grunge. Not really thrash, but not really stoner doom either. It has a bit of Alice In Chains meets Metallica feel to it, with just a bit of Dimebag riffage thrown in. The creepy kid vocals added in suit today just fine.

Orange Goblin – Anytime a band names a song after themselves it always seems to be awesome. The lyrics are about trippy space travel and fantasy. Close your eyes and let the sound waves take you away.

Star Shaped Cloud – The down low bass and the screechy guitar contrast each other nicely. The keys sound cool. This almost sounds like a Jaco Pastorius/Stevie Wonder collaboration. Funky and chunky. A minute or so in the guitar and vocal tones lead this off in a metallic direction. Then it changes back to the funk fest. The back and forth make this a really cool and unique song.

This album, maybe more so than any other in the Orange Goblin catalogue, show their ability to play many styles. Some may say they were unfocused. I say they gave us many awesome things to choose from. I strongly recommend you buy this album and crank it up.

9.95/10