New Psych Rock: Mortal Prophets + “ICNCLST/”

Reviews

31 Aug

A Trippy, tricky new Album from the American band

Grunge and Pysch band Mortal Prophets release new album "INCLST/" - Album Cover Art

Mortal Prophets' John Beckmann, the ever restless, ever prolific vocalist and lyricist, is back with “ICNCLST/”: A 7-song collection of sinuously psychedelic, rock-tinged pop.

Opening with the warmly euphoric "Flowers For You," which is bound with reverbed vocal echoes, a crying pedal-steel and sitar-kissed atmospherics, results in a post-Nuggets influenced track with the mess of modern times in mind: “It’s a cut that somehow manages to chime and charm as much as it haunts and disturbs around the edge”. An excellent start to the EP, it is posied to draw you in with its shoegaze-tinted character, drawing images of coming-of-age films and notions of character justice.

"The Sun Is On Fire" channels the escapist impulses of peak-era Doors and cants them through a best-of-the-80s filter, with the same effortless panache that DPB taught us to expect. Propulsive, atmospheric, and not a little fraught, the track rings with a classic rock-n-roll fatalism. Followed by the sly, sultry "Bang Bang," which is soaked in urban intrigue, slinks into your consciousness like Peter Gunn’s ghostly shadow out on the prowl. Upon first listen, ideas of a stripped-back version of this may slide nicely into a future Peaky Blinders spin-off. Further enhancing the track’s Tommy Shelby-esque dark allure, the accompanying video made by Michele Civetta fills the eye with noirish menace and jumpy innuendo, captured through a deliriously unsettling yet irressistable black and white filter.

The New York-centric track "Who's That Girl", with its minimalist groove slow-motion synth-waves, spotlights Beckmann's fluid baritone voice tracing a path right down the center between cynicism and yearning. The multi-layered, dusky "So Real" and “Like The Night” are as ghostly as they are luxuriant with their dreamy bass dialogue, with Beckmann elucidating the pain of missing someone so much that the ache is visceral.

“Dreamland,” the concluding song of the collection, is a kaleidoscopic wonder suspended between Bryan Ferry, The Wizard of Oz, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. As eerie as it is enchanting, the track leaves the album on an unsettled note, teasing us for the next chapter of Mortal Prophets, which is said to already be in the works….

An album that upholds limitless repeat listenings, “ICNCLST/” sees Mortal Prophets continue their reign as one of the current music world's most invaluable sources of a pop and psychedelic styles. Produced by David Sisko and mastered by Mike Tucci, with session master Gerald Menke (The Dixons, Dent May) lending his unique guitar talents and Sisko deftly filling in on multiple instruments as needed, every sound within the album is where it should be. It’s a patient, attentive collection, with each track holding an almost-equal chance to fight for top of the table. Each story has the ambition to develop in the ears of listeners with each spin - a type of sonic storytelling control that psych fans will relish.