Formed by friends Lemmy Gurtowsky and Dan Jones upon relocating from their native Connecticut to Amherst Massachusetts California X have been gaining attention since their self tiltled debut released in 2013. February 2015 sees the release of California X’s new album ‘Nights In The Dark’,
This band first came to my attention when dear departed fanzine The Fly had this debut album as one of their albums of 2013. That album was a breathless mix of overdriven fuzzed up guitars, massive riffs and tunes, and Nights In The Dark carries on where that left off.
Title track Nights In The Dark kicks off the album with menacing guitars warning of the storm to come, before fading into a Dinosaur Jr type power pop jaunt. Red Planet, up next, carries on the mood, again with heavy guitars, vocal buried within the mix, but again retaining the tunes and hooks.
California X boast a dual guitar attack and vocalist Lemmy (sadly, he doesn’t play bass) is at the forefront of the sound. All that being said, the album offers up a couple of surprises in the shape of two delicate gorgeous instrumentals ; Ayla’s Song, a 2 minute acoustic fingerpicked palate cleanser, and Garlic Road, more resembling of a fully formed song, sparse piano chords and all.
Backbone and standout highlight of the nine songs on the album are Blackrazor (Pt1) and Blackrazor (Pt2). Part 1 is a massive riff heavy dirge of a song, think 90’s heavy grunge, while Part 2 ups the pace to resemble a Dio era Sabbath vibe. If they don’t play this track as an encore live, I’ll be massively disappointed.
Summer Wall (Pt1) and (Pt2) close the album, and the band head back more towards their heavy indie roots.
Whilst this album lacks some of the urgency of the debut, that’s by no means a criticism, and I guess one would describe this as the sound of a band maturing. Mature or not, lets hope they play live in the UK (Leeds please) soon, because they have created certainly my first essential album of 2015.
Keith @kjsmith4082
9/11
