http://www.paristransatlantic.com/ma...un_text.html#9
Glacial
ON JONES BEACH
Three Lobed Recordings
Glacial's sonorities are mainly shaped by Lee Ranaldo's scorching guitar, David Watson's beloved bagpipes and Tony Buck's ritual potions on the drums. Although the band – with minor variations in the lineup – has existed for over 13 years now, On Jones Beach represents their first official recording, a 750-copy (or so) limited vinyl edition enriched by Ursula Scherrer's cover photography and complemented by a download coupon for the whole enchilada – the 48-minute title track (recorded in 2005) and three shorter takes from live sessions at 2003's MIMI Festival and at New York's Tonic in 2006. Even if not exactly new, the music doesn't sound dated. Its primary constituent is an evident monotonality with loads of chordal grunge, layers of mantric distortion and percussive trance gradually added as the volume increases dramatically, bagpipes emitting penetrating war cries until the whole droning carnage ends in mayhem. There's a pause of sorts halfway through the longer set, with Buck left alone for a while before his ominous thumping resurrects the beast for another trilateral blitz. The brief live segments add further salt to a recipe that might gain the immediate interest of educated headbangers: if a psychedelically amorphous combination of Popol Vuh, Z'EV and Birchville Cat Motel is your idea of fun, this is right up your alley.–MR