Nebula – Holy Shit


Holy Shit (Heavy Psych Sounds) is really the album title you want to go with for your fifth LP, Nebula? Okay, I can dig it. Do you know what else I can dig? The sheer variety of riffs and leads being traded around by Eddie Glass and his groovy cohorts. It’s like if the man had been stockpiling sweet licks in a fallout shelter since the band’s inception in far more innocent 1997.

I find this remarkable as we are living in a world in which many a Stoner/Doom band are content to sit on one heavy groove and ride it out for the duration of the song, Nebula tosses in guitar parts wholesale. While it may be lacking just a tad in the low-end department, ‘Man’s Best Friend’ fills all voids with a cascade of notes coming from Glass’ general direction and amps. ‘Witching Hour’ escalates in almost Diamond Head fashion until it too rips open the roof into the psychedelic riff department. But Glass’ musical scope isn’t just limited to the golden hard rock years of the seventies and eighties as evidenced by the Surf stylings of the all too brief ‘Fistful of Pills’ that sits perfectly in the center of Holy Shit.

Hungry for more? Then have yourself a helping of the Flamenco touches tucked in between the fat waves of amplification on the mini-epic ‘Tomorrow Never Comes.’ If that tickles your fancy, then you’re going to want to pay attention to washed out stroll through the cosmos that takes center stage in immediate follow up ‘Gates of Eden.’

If I was ever let down on this romp through amplified bliss it’s by the bass not being a bit more prominent and ‘The Cry of a Tortured World’ being plenty of build up but never reaching an adequate payoff.

Holy shit? More like holy shit this thing is pretty dope.

7 / 10

HANS LOPEZ