Dead Sea Apes- Psychic Tension (Album Review)

Manchester based Dead Sea Apes have released a wealth of material over their seventeen years as a band, and with material that spans everything from psychedelic and space rock to dub and drone there’s always something different to experience on each release.  The group has expanded and contracted over time, bringing in additional collaborators on some albums and even working on conjunction with other bands, but this year’s Psychic Tension strips things back to the core trio in a similar fashion as 2023’s Rewilding.  Spread across five tracks, Psychic Tension retains the hazy psychedelic explorations and sprawling instrumentation but orients itself around darker and heavier tones, giving off a more aggressive feel compared to some of the band’s prior work.

The core elements of Dead Sea Apes remain intact on this newest effort, meaning this is still an instrumental only affair and the writing revolves around repetition and sprawling rhythms and riffs.  Opener “Damn Your Eyes” doesn’t immediately clue you in to the emphasis on faster tempos Psychic Tension is going for though, as it spends most of its run exploring methodical and hazy instrumentation that falls somewhere between psychedelic rock and krautrock, but there’s a noticeably darker slant to the atmosphere and things come off as a bit more ominous than before.  Once the title track takes over the band shifts gears towards a noticeably faster and more aggressive approach, and the hazier psychedelia gives way to crunchier riffing and a bit more of a metallic tone.  Here Dead Sea Apes balances shimmering leads with burlier rock ‘n roll, and the way the guitars explode into a psychedelic freakout towards the end is entrancing.  It reminds me of bands like Earthless and Ecstatic Vision, but the heavy, repeated riff also gives me hints of post metal’s crushing peaks.  The second half of the album returns to the more methodical tempos, with “Severance” balancing denser riffs with airier waves of psychedelia, while “Ursa Minor” brings back some of the dub elements that the band has explored throughout their career.  “Ursa Minor” is one of the album’s highlights for me, as it also lets the instrumentals breathe a bit more and has a lead riff that gives me a spaghetti western vibe in between the dub and psychedelic jams.  Some of these additional nuances continue to give Dead Sea Apes their own sound, as while they’ve continued to draw from a wide range of psychedelic rock and krautrock influences the way everything ebbs and flows feels unique.

Of course, the big question with this type of instrumental rock is always, does it do enough to sustain your attention as opposed to just coming across like background music?  The answer to that is a definitive yes for Psychic Tension, and there are two major factors that contribute to this.  The first is the way the material ebbs and flows, as while things are focused on repetition and layered build-ups, Dead Sea Apes creates a hypnotic atmosphere and when they hit the gas pedal and go a bit faster things ramp up in tension and have a noticeably eerier tone.  Additionally, the recording has a rawer, live feel to it, as if the band is letting these layers build directly in front of you, and this does a great job at pulling you further into everything the material has to offer.  There are a few areas that could’ve been tightened up, as “Ursa Minor” does stretch out just a bit longer than it needs to and “Severance” is a bit too uniform in how it builds, but these are minor criticisms to an otherwise strong showing.

Bands in the psychedelic rock space sometimes release material so often that it all runs together, but Dead Sea Apes has done a good job over their career of shaking things up from album to album.  There are similarities in the foundation of the songwriting to 2023’s Rewilding, but the heavier and darker tones that feel like they sometimes head into metal territory and some of the added urgency gives Psychic Tension a voice of its own.  A few areas do drag slightly, but if you enjoy sprawling instrumental psychedelic rock and krautrock this is worth checking out.  Psychic Tension is available from Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube Records.

-Review by Chris Dahlberg