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Deep Space Pilots: Deep space pilots
14/02/12 || gk
A few years ago there was a folder of music floating around the Internet called the Chicago doom pack. Consisting of 4 young bands from Chicago with their first demos, it was an impressive little collection of various styles of slow and heavy music. 3 of those bands split up without really doing much but the most promising of the lot, Deep Space Pilots, got around to releasing their debut album in 2011.
The album starts with three great songs. “Holy Mountain”, “Everlasting” and “Black Emanuelle” are laid back stoner doom songs that are helped greatly by memorable vocal melodies and a seamless transition between the softer more laid back parts and the heavier doom bits with the drummer often leading the way. This is followed by the instrumental, “Spiderman” which has a great guitar line and a pretty standard drum and bass rhythm. It’s another song that is simple in structure and flows smoothly from beginning to end. “Light of the Sun” reminds me a lot of older Farflung with its space rock feel as the opening riff builds steadily with a layer of samples working effectively to create atmosphere before the soaring vocals kick in. “Consecration for Burial” is an instrumental jam with a very pleasing heaviness to it and a nice build up before the inevitable guitar solo. “Bowels of the Beast” sounds like a chilled out and mildly stoned Electric Wizard with the vocals again providing the hook with an easy melody and laid back approach. “Black Hole” is the mandatory ten plus minute epic that closes out the album. A driving bass riff sets things off before the guitars kick in and this is a very enjoyable and catchy finish to the album.
Where Deep Space Pilots win is in the song writing department. The songs are tight and focused. While stylistically they sound a bit like Black Sabbath meets Farflung and the music is not particularly original for this genre, the band does pull it off well. The rhythm section, Hilmers on bass and The Shank on drums are pretty much the driving force behind each of these songs. The duo create a solid foundation and often carry the songs forward. Guitarist and vocalist Zeb provides the catchy riffs and a reverb heavy but melodic and laid back vocal style. He sounds a bit 90s alt-rock in his approach but consistently comes up with memorable vocal lines.
This is a pretty impressive debut by the band. There’s a marked progression from the demo they released in 2007 and what we get here is basically 10 new songs of laid back stoner doom that is quite catchy. A band to keep an eye on and an album worth checking out.
- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Self released
- Website: Deep Space Pilots MySpace
- Band
- Zeb: guitars, vocals
- Hilmers: bass
- The Shank: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Holy Mountain
- 02. Everlasting
- 03. Black Emanuelle
- 04. Spiderman
- 05. Light of the Sun
- 06. The Unconquered
- 07. Consecration for Burial
- 08. Bowels of the Beast
- 09. Black Hole
