Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
I am someone that obviously enjoys a kick-ass rock band, especially one that unleashes an album that absolutely impresses me right from the start.
That is made even better when the band is a “hungry upstart” who has issued their very first official recording… and said recording is a stellar fare of spectacular music from start to finish.
Meet the London, U.K.-based ORBITAL JUNCTION and their introductory recording, a five-song, self-titled EP that successfully plants the band’s arrival firmly upon the global rock topography. That’s a map, ya know? And like any good map, this studio-borne one from vocalist Owen Armstrong, guitarist Ric Fordyce, bassist Billy Dale, and drummer Jack Revans, has wonderful places to take you.
Allow me to lay it all out before you, if I may, as there are the direct routes of beefy, brawny stoner rock that permeate all points of this delineation. Yet those are not the only ways to get to our destination, as the quartet guides us along trails and back-ways laden with heavy fuzz, just like the sort that launches this journey, “Space Highway“.
Navigated by grooves and abundant attitude, the song’s quickened paces are an energetic kick-off to the EP. You barely have a moment to allow it all to sink in before we’re taken on the trail of the molten presence that is the second cut, “6 FT. 2“. While that sounds like a respectable stature, it does not even begin to relate to the gargantuan physique of this superb standout.
From there, we traverse the southern-tinged electric blues of “Devil’s Double“, but make no mistake, I doubt a doppelgänger, demonic or otherwise, of this scorching number exists out there. I especially dig Fordyce‘s fiery guitar pyrotechnics here, along with the driving advances of in-the-pocket rhythmic propulsion provided by Dale and Revans.
We are given our first shot to catch our breath, albeit briefly, with the mellow, psych-blues start of “Gypsy Queen“. Plodding and slowly lumbering at first, that soon shifts into the crunch ‘n rumble brawn of the song as Owen Armstrong delivers one of the EP’s best vocal performances – although truthfully, the guy is really a somewhat not-so-secret weapon.
We all know, or at least should, that a great singer is all for naught without equally great musicians beside him. Perhaps the best example of this all jiving together just right is the EP’s ending cut. “Pagan” is a damned blistering incineration of a song from within its own fourfold means of delivery. These guys just fiercely crush it here, an intense high point that ultimately provides our safe arrival to where we have been headed: ORBITAL JUNCTION.
In my opinion, this is one trek you definitely do not want to miss out on taking, so climb aboard via our stream above. If you enjoy doing things your own way then hey, that’s cool too. You can stream/buy the self-titled EP from ORBITAL JUNCTION at Bandcamp [HERE].
Catch the band performing live in the U.K. at these upcoming shows:
- Sat. Sep. 15 – Southampton @ The Hobbit Pub (w/ Incarnadine Coven & The Lucky Stars) [info]
- Sat. Sep. 22 – London @ The Gunners
- Fri. Oct. 19 – London @ The Unicorn (Camden Live), (w/ Trevor’s Head, The Lunar Effect & Wychhound) [info]
- Fri. Nov. 09 -Alton-Hampshire @ TBA
- Fri. Nov. 30 – Stevenage @ Red Lion (w/ Green Lung, Trevor’s Head & Bad Men) [info]
