"Let’s see what we have here: a decidedly hippie-fied band name, a hand-painted album cover and an 18-minute track called “Space Jam (Looney Tuning).” Gotta be a jam band, right? Well, no, not really. While Atlanta-based Vegan Coke definitely digs the extended instrumentals, there’s a lot more Motorhead than Wookiefoot in their DNA.
Untzbenon opens at its most accessible with “Architeuthis,” a fuzzed-out, six-minute stomper that rides Eric Grantham’s manic drum work around in circles. Chad LeBlanc’s meandering guitar jousts good-naturedly with Amir Mirsajedin’s foreboding bass as the track moves from frenzied uproar to smooth groove and back again. It’s a deceptively tight track that suggest the noisier efforts of mid‘70s prog/proto-metal acts like Hawkwind.
The sound takes a more modern turn on the eight-minute “Anhedonia.” With its creeping guitar licks and big, ballsy rhythm section, it plays sort of like someone mashed together the opening riffs of a dozen or so tracks from a “Today’s Best Alternative” radio station. It’s basically hard rock hook after hard rock hook, with enough musical variety to keep an audience engaged for the duration.
The run-times keep on expanding with nine minutes of “Gay Gothic Cowboy,” a piece that doesn’t immediately bring to mind any of the words in its title. Instead, it’s another churning chunk of old school metal that takes frequent detours into avant noise rock. It’s a little less coherent than the preceding tracks, although the bouncy middle section is oddly captivating and the high-speed conclusion borders on psychedelic.
And then there’s the main event. “Space Jam (Looney Tuning)” completes the album’s evolution from melodic to straight-up experimental with nearly 20 minutes of guitar feedback, electronic chirps and general cacophony. It’s actually much more listenable than one might think, thanks in large part to the stable groundwork laid by Grantham’s drums. Much like a good jazz drummer, he uses his percussion as a recognizable reference point, giving listeners something to latch onto in the midst of all the sonic tumult. The result is a noisy but intriguing track that falls more on the Yahowa 13 side of heavy jamming than the Metal Machine Music side.
All told, Untzbenon is something of an academic exercise. Everything here is solid and exciting, but it’s hard to imagine the album getting a ton of spins in most folks’ collections. Still, it’s a consistently engaging exercise in hard rock experimentation. Perhaps most importantly, it gives the impression that Vegan Coke puts on one hell of a live show." - Ira Brooker / Made Loud
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"A drum that beats, heats and sizzles. Two bass guitars, ... storming bass guitars ! Ponctuated by splutters, gurgles and pure, unadulterated babble.
The occasional musical mine planted here and there and great clouds of laughing gas.
A saturday night with an endless supply of kung fu films and popcorn. Psychedelic wanderings and that elusive something that gets inside your head.
Sixties pop tripping out and waking up with an industrial hangover. They themselves call it regressive rock. They are the three wild beasts that are Le Singe Blanc." - Anatole Grimace
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