BLACK ELEPHANT
Seven Swords
SMALL STONE
Fuzz-encrusted psych mesmerism from the
Savona
seaports
Just when you’re getting used to a gig-free world, Black Elephant make you pine for dark and sweaty back rooms where the walls shake and the riffs reverberate. Seven Swords builds on the slow-burning sleaze jam of 2018’s Cosmic Blues album by offering another slab of classic, hypnotic psych and motorcycle rock. Sometimes it’s grizzly, when Alessio Caravelli gets growly, but for the most part the soporific music speaks for itself, lulling you into a catatonic state where elongated guitar licks tantalise in the background. This is the sort of album you get lost in, but don’t take their switches of psych and organic desert rock riffs for granted; these fuzzmongers have nailed it.