Music
Press
"A mixture of progressive late 60's / early 70's innovators...bombastic" - REVOLVER - Revolver
"Psychedelic cult metal" - MTV NEWS - MTV News
"the sound of a good old-fashioned rock band letting it rip.....Bigelf should appeal equally to doom metallists and Wolfmother admirers." - All Music - All Music
"Bigelf is a startlingly precise hybrid of Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd. Psychedelic sorcery harmonies and outer space orgy metal... " - DECIBEL - Decibel
"The Bigelf "sound" involves great washings of Hammond organ, Mellotrons and crunching 70's superfried guitars bleating away like acid-gospel in some perverse cathedral of doom" -Classic Rock - Classic Rock
Discography
Cheat The Gallows
HEX
Painkillers
Madhatter EP
Goatbridge Palace
Money Machine
Closer To Doom
Photos
Bio
Theres nothing ordinary about the fabled Los Angeles quartet Bigelf. In fact, even the extraordinary are crushed in the wake of a heroic bombast so brilliant, you cant help but be swept adrift by the doomed mist of infectious melodies and chilling harmonies that collide with an otherworldly embrace of the psychedelic on Cheat the Gallows, the bands debut release for Linda Perrys Custard Records.
The epic album is the soundtrack for new world disorder. Were talking about a pop-cultural phenomenon shaped by the muse of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Queen and The Beatles. Bigelf is massive in stature, muscular in tone and beautifully diabolic, oozing with the credibility of artistic savant and ironclad integrity.
Our genetic codes are from the great ones, the great acts and rock groups of the past, says frontman Damon Fox. Weve been exploring taboo grounds for a long time, and the oxygen is really thin up here. Its a very high mentality, and theres very little room for error. When you get into those psychedelic and progressive rock categories, youre battling some of the greatest shit that ever existed, so youre either going to be great, or youre going to suck.
Bigelf is great.
Fox loves sprinkling conversations about his bands music with the word progressive, but lets make something perfectly clear: Bigelf doesnt create music, Bigelf crafts orchestrations. And Bigelf isnt progressive like a bunch of guitar school students trying to outplay each other and see who can set their strings on fire first, theyre progressive in the sense that they truly take hard rock into the future, embracing the genres rich cultural past and reinterpreting it with a slant and skew that gives the new millennium a sound its been waiting far too long for: Strawberry Fields tossed with the acid-wash of mushroom caps, The Wizard taken to whole new heights of paranoia, Dream Police with souped-up squad cars, and a more divine Karn Evil No. 9.
The creativity of psychedelic rock and the limitless horizons of prog rock are totally gone today. There are too many formulas, too many rules, and everybody is just too bogged down with singles, sales, and their MySpace pages We still care about pressing boundaries, says the frontman.
From the hyperkinetic zeitgeist and manic sideshow glee of opening colossus Gravest Show on Earth, to the cinematic sound explosion of closing track Counting Sheep, the run-of-the-mill gets run through the mill on Cheat the Gallows, as Fox, guitarist Ace Mark, bassist Duffy Snowhill and drummer Froth dare modern rock and roll to try and keep pace. They pillage the tired and thought-to-be-true with a brazenly aggressive approach to guitar driven histrionics, haughty Hammond organ and majestic Mellotron tapestries, and a bottom end that spins, swirls and a surrounds the senses with penetrating bass lines and an upright backbone of drums that pave the defiant pace.
At the forefront of the musical melee is lead single Money Its Pure Evil, a master class in marrying blues-based, classic rock tendencies with todays more mainstream fancies for minimalist rock and roll missives. I wrote that song when I was 21 years-old, and its straight from the John Lennon playbook, says Fox, who admits that the song has fragmented over the course of the past decade-plus, but still rings truer than ever. The video is fantastic and inspiring, about Hollywood and the darkness of fame and what happens to people caught in its web. The trains off the track, but people are too busy looking at it to do anything about it
Not Bigelf, who does plenty of eye (and ear) opening throughout the course of their defining 60-minute opus. If you think back, Guns N Roses were the last dangerous band truly living the lifestyle, destroying hotel rooms and pushing the envelope, Fox recalls. That era may be over, but music should still be dangerous. Were more into the heady, intellectual side of danger, and the envelopes were pushing are in your mind. Were pushing thoughts and emotions, not news clippings of someone getting arrested.
Gravest Show on Earth is the quintessential opening track, a twisted joyride of marching drums, sinister vocals that will make Robin Zander squirm with pride, and a sonic smorgasbord of Sgt. Pepper-worthy salutations that beckon you in with a long, twisted finger and set the tone for the albums ensuing cuts. Blackball is a heavy, down-tuned swash of melodic rapture saturated in a lyrical escape from the corporate stranglehold, while The Evils of Rock and Roll features the bands signature maniacal vocals atop a Tony Iommi-inspired guitar assault. Throughout, Bigelf embraces its unwavering affinity for not only honing a pop aesthetic, but honoring it throughout the song. No Parachute and Race with Time shift into demented shades of Pink Floyd-fashioned hypnotic psychosis, Superstar submits to the saucy seduction of a rock and r
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