While so many bands of a psychedelic bent treat the genre as if it has been pickled in aspic since the swinging sixties of London and San Francisco or maybe the motorik sounds of mid-70s West Germany, the Cult of Dom Keller don’t give any impression of being hemmed in by such self-imposed and heritage-worshipping rules. Flipping from harsh industrial sounds to the voodoo blues of early Velvet Underground, trippy dream pop to dark drones with weird Middle Eastern samples, They Carried the Dead in a UFO has nothing about it that suggests business as usual in Planet Head-spin. Far from it in fact, as the album was recorded under strict Covid conditions with the four cult members never being in the studio at the same time. It’s a recording system that has served them well.
From the feedback-rich, snarling gothic groove of “Run from the Gullskinna” to the mind-squeezing sound collage of “Psychic Surgery”, They Carried the Dead in a UFO is constantly jumping tempos, if not genres, between and even during songs. “She Turned into a Serpent” brings in screaming feedback over a backbeat that has something of the Birthday Party about it, while “The Last King of Hell” is a demonic howl from a swirling funnel of sound with a relentless groove that could punch holes in walls. In fact, from beginning to end, there’s not a single lightweight tune here.
Given that this is the fifth album in almost 15 years from the Cult of Dom Keller, there is nothing tired or predictable about They Carried the Dead in a UFO. This is an album that is, by turns, experimental and explosive, light and airy and dark and menacing. But it is never less than fully engaging, pushing on to new and exciting sonic spaces.
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