ALBUM REVIEW: Heavy Petal Music – Rainbows Are Free
The sleepy city of Norman lies almost directly in the centre of the state of Oklahoma in the great American Midwest. The city’s main cultural features are a selection of museums, arts festivals, jazz festivals and a small selection of renaissance fairs. It is the last place you’d expect to find a hulking juggernaut of proto-doom, a frantic cacophony of swirling psychedelia and heavy metal. However, sleepy Oklahoma is the humble abode of one such band: the enigmatic quintet RAINBOWS ARE FREE.
The band formed in 2007 as a conglomeration of several other local bands and their unique sound lives at the crossroads where proto-metal and heavy psychedelia shared a common apocryphal ancestor before branching off into their own distinct genres. Stalwarts of the underground, RAINBOWS ARE FREE return with the emphatic Heavy Petal Music live album, where the raw ferocity of their live performances has been captured in scintillating style. Performed and recorded in their hometown, the energy is palpable from the very beginning to its final flourish.
The Oklahoma quintet often perform costumed on stage, led by the seven foot tall vocal behemoth Brandon Kistler. While we cannot see the band’s strange costumes, we can feel Kistler’s looming presence, his raw and emotive vocals powerfully leading the charge to the backdrop of the dual guitar wizardry of Richie Tarver (lead) and Joey Powell (rhythm). Providing eerie psychedelic atmospherics is Josh Elam (synths), while the driving rhythm section of Jason Smith (bass) and Bobby Onspaugh (drums) lock it all in with their infectious grooves.
Performing a diverse setlist of songs from all three of their studio albums; Believers In Medicine (2010), Waves Ahead Of The Ocean (2012) and Head Pains (2019), you can hear the evolution of RAINBOWS ARE FREE’s sound over the years from song to song, ranging from gritty proto-doom to hypnotic psychedelia. Combined with the incredible energy of the band’s performance and the fervent reverence and passion, Heavy Petal Music is a live album experience which sends tingles down your spine.
From start to finish, Heavy Petal Music feels supercharged. There is a mystical aura surrounding it; the band’s unique sound and Kistler’s unforgettable vocal delivery simply blows you a way. Sonically it feels like a drop of acid, one that completely fries your brain into believing that you’re in an alternate universe where there are UFOs full of various kinds of aliens that wear wizard robes and play on amplifiers the size of industrial shipping containers. This completely off the wall strangeness is what gives RAINBOWS ARE FREE their charm, and hearing it in a live setting is absolutely mesmerising. It is clear from the fan’s reactions that RAINBOWS ARE FREE are cult heroes in Norman. Several times throughout the album you can hear the manic declarations of love.
The album itself is also very well produced; the guitars are balanced and meaty, and the power of the bass and drums feels like a cannonball through your chest. Elam’s synths weave in and out of the chaos with a glimmering eeriness that adds to the spine-tingling energy that you experience throughout Heavy Petal Music.
Opening the set with psychedelic doom rager Come off of their debut album, RAINBOWS ARE FREE kick off the show in style, the valves on their amps already burning red hot and crackling. It only gets stranger from here, as the uneasy, trippy introduction of Electricity On Wax showcases the uniqueness of Kistler’s voice, going from strange melodies into manic screeching in the blink of an eye, his sharp, bellowing delivery cutting through mountains of fuzz. Like A River introduces a hypnotic groove to the performance. A half time drum groove and slowly developing synth drones leads to an eruption of big riff psychedelia.
The intro for Cadillac feels like it was plucked straight out of the Palm Desert Scene. Desert heat-soaked psychedelics alongside deep, earthy riffs, it’s at this point that you can really feel the feedback loop of frantic energy between the band and the audience, and even though you may be listening on headphones in your bedroom, it feels like you’re there in Norman. Are You Dead is a gritty, sludgy, salt of the earth track that sounds huge in a live setting; it carries on this magnetic energy with a virtuosic display from Tarver. Shapeshifter is a brief moment of psyched out bliss towards the end of the set – a small moment of calm before the stoner metal storm in the form of Sonic Demon. RAINBOWS ARE FREE close their performance with the seven and a half minute epic Crystal Ball, and they belt it our with pride.
Packed full of anthemic riffs and ethereal psychedelics, Heavy Petal Music marks an exciting return for RAINBOWS ARE FREE, as the band’s mystical yet chaotic energy is captured brilliantly.
Rating: 8/10
Heavy Petal Music is set for release on 9th June via Ripple Music.
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