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Album Review – The Membranes “Dark Matter/Dark Energy” – Wicked Spins Radio

Membranes – Dark Matter / Dark Energy album review

Review by – Shaun Histed-Todd AKA The Snuff Monkey

The Album can be purchased from the Louder than War website HERE

Follow The Membranes on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/theMembranes/?ref=ts&fref=ts

And Twitter @membranes1

Purchase The Membranes – Dark Matter/ Dark Energy – from Louder than War store

In 1977 a young John Robb was experimenting with music using tape recorders. He recorded drum breaks from AC/DC albums and played riffs with a makeshift bass made of rubber bands and cigar boxes. After a while he went seeking other like-minded musicians a year later and inspired by punk he had formed the Membranes. After six albums constant touring and rave reviews the band went quiet and John went on to form the successful Goldblade.

Jumping forward to 2009 and The Membranes were asked at the request of Shellac to reform for All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival and the band’s story picks back up with further successful sell-out shows and in 2015 they released their sixth album and first in 25 years “Dark Matter / Dark Energy” to the delight of fans around the world. It’s an intelligent album born out of John’s interest in physics and the Universe and wonderfully fuses Punk and Science in one fell swoop.

The opening track on the album is “The Universe Explodes Into A Billion Photons Of Pure White Light” and a fantastic tune that I feel will become a classic. Inspired by a meeting between John and the head of the Higgs Bosons project Joe Incandela, the song is an epic psychedelic blast about Sex, Death and the Big Bang that sets the soundscape for the album perfectly. “Do the Supernova “Starts with a soft chorus before hitting us with a hard punching bass line that grinds its way over a pounding drum beat as celebration of the Universe. Enter the “21^st Century Man” with a thumping tribal intro that leads into an industrial wall of sound.
“Money is Dust” continues with the tribal driven rhythm, a more relaxed tune with a repetitious bass line and funky guitars. The song brings us to consider our place in the universe and how we are nothing more than a speck of dust in the sheer scale of it. “The Multiverse Suite” is spacey piece of musicianship with a string section and e-bows setting a mystical soundscape and backdrop as the head of the Higgs Boson project Joe Incandela, explains the Universe to us.

“Space Junk” is about the debris of the space race and opens with a plodding funked up bass groove intersected with scything guitar cuts as the membranes asks us if “ we want to take a ride across the endless sky, Space Junk”. This is another one of my favourite tracks on the album post-punk brilliance. “Dark Matter” opens with genuine sound recordings of the Universe supplied to the band by inside sources we are informed. An instrumental track that builds from classical drones played on e-bows and ascends to a masterful climax that’s comes over nothing short of majestic.

“If you enter the arena, be sure to deal with the Lions” is edgy and harsh building up around a cutting guitar riff and into a thunderous and rolling wall of sound. “Hail to the lovers” Gives us that genuine Membranes sound grinding bass and guitars set to a rocking post-punk love song for the space age punkers .

“Magic Eye (To see the sky) “ Shows us the cultural diversity of the Membranes sound adding an eastern touch to this wonderful psyched out bliss. The song is about the Universe being everywhere, wherever you stand you are in the crux of the Universe, wonderful stuff. “5776 (The Breathing Song) ” is based purely around rhythmic breathing coupled with a string section and a dubby bass line it’s an ode to the beauty of the universe that surrounds us.

During the recording of this album John Robb’s father passed away affecting the theme of many of the songs, pondering the life and death of the human being and the Universe. With “Dark Energy” we are presented with a track of melancholy and the coming to terms off loss. Something we all relate to and face through our lives which neatly lead us on to “The Hum of the Universe” the last track on the album. Recorded in B Flat that is the true hum of the Universe, it’s a chaotic psychedelic master piece that completes a truly inspiring album and leaving you wanting more

Recently the Membranes have taken the album a step further accompanied with a choir on live sets adding even further depth and new grounds.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4F5sIPDkg4FlvgKNKmwQTF

The Album can be purchased from the Louder than War website HERE
Upcoming shows
Westgarth Social Club – Middlesborough
https://www.facebook.com/events/1661118040840459/

Kingston Row, Cambrian Wharf, B1 2NU Birmingham
https://www.facebook.com/events/1508473762796652/

Follow The Membranes on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/theMembranes/?ref=ts&fref=ts

And Twitter @membranes1