Terminal Cheesecake - Dandelion Sauce Of The Ancients

Back in the day King Of All Spaceheads was a great album to get baked to. The fact that Dandelion Sauce Of The Ancients brings to mind Fishbone as it opens doesn’t initially give the impression that it’ll have quite the same vibe going on. And as it pounds away in a semi-industrial manner first track ‘Birds In 6/8’ certainly doesn’t inspire you to pack a bowl and drift off. Not that’s it’s actually bad per se, just maybe not quite what was expected but then, this far down the line and with a member change or two, Terminal Cheesecake are not the same group as the one which created the earlier work.

‘Poultice’ maintains the weight evident in the first song, bringing in a Butthole Surfers nod along the way. The pace here’s a notch or two lower than on ‘Birds’ and the vocal effects are more akin to what you’d expect from the ‘90s efforts of the band so in a sense this a partial return to form although more stoner rock than stoner dub, to split a few more hairs. There’s an unmistakable groove in play now though so nodding sagely along is likely what you’ll find yourself doing towards the end of the track even on the first play.

‘The Winding Path’ clocks in at just under seven minutes and largely feels like an over-extended bass solo as the industrial sound returns. Gnod are I suppose pottering around in the same musical territory these days but they seem to have a better grip on what will work well with extended workouts of this sort. Likewise the Sabbathesque beginning of ‘Dandelions’, along with a drop in pace to one of basically plodding drums, leads on to guitar histrionics without a point for six minutes. Whether these elements were all there twenty years ago and just masked or channelled differently with different production values could well be the case. Either way they’re not vastly appealing when heard at present.

‘Song For John Pt.1’, on the other hand, makes a fair stab at the heights of old, marrying well as it does the previously noted more industrial sound with the tripped-out sounds of yesteryear. For many of you this will be a grower. For many others it’ll be a reasonable introduction to a band whom it’s good to have back in the fray; you may though enjoy them even more when you dip into the back catalogue.

Dandelion Sauce Of The Ancients is available from amazon.