Drone Magazine E.P Review

Keeping the spirit of broody, dark, non-metallic drone alive are Spiral 25 - a mostly five, sometimes six-piece from Oxford who flaunt the undeniably catchy label bestowed on them by the local music press (theirs, that is): 'slowmotion narcotic groove rock.'

Careful. That might wind up a legitimate genre of music.

Reviews of the band compare their sound to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3 and The Doors. Clearly we are on a bridge over some sort of musical generation gap because when I threw on their EP... EP... and found myself besieged by the crushing guitar on 'Let The Light Shine On', the first name that ran across my mind was The Horrors. This was followed by The Warlocks. Then the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It would appear that I am at the 'new generation' end of the bridge.

The cross-generational comparisons are not inconsistent, of course. Spiral 25 channel the same dark reverberations that characterise the music of the bands mentioned. Except for the Jesus and Mary Chain whose influence strikes my ears as negligible. The songs on the EP are immensely dark. This is not a band you will, or should, catch rehearsing in your local park on a sunny day. They sound dark and ideal for echo-inducing acoustic-amplifying venues such as vampire-laden caves and dimly-lit taverns. Russell Denham has a voice reminiscent of the low grumble that personified the vocalist of almost every major post-punk act to have existed.

In fact Spiral 25 manage to make even the usually cheery harmonica come across as a thug. On 'Today's Future (Tomorrow's Past)' Chris Monger arms the instrument with a dagger and sics it at you while Russell gives the command 'Kill! Kill! Kill!' It's all rather intimidating. 'Shadows in Line' is possibly the strongest track on the EP, and further proof of the band's ability to hypnotise objects. 'Watch the shadows fall in line' boast the lyrics, as they stare down... shadows. Now that's cool.

You can easily imagine Spiral 25 striking dumb the few loyal patrons of a local pub (volume or talent, one of them will do it) and just as easily see them playing to a massive crowd of a few hundred darkly-clad types sporting perpendicular hairstyles. Whatever the setting, absence of light is essential.

by Radhika Takru
http://www.dronemagazine.com/

An E.P review from Drone Magazine, a blog which covers some pretty decent music.

We've also recently got most of the tracking done for a second E.P, hopefully release that around the same time next year as the last one. Will keep you all posted.

Golden Animals Revisited

A far cry from Vixens, these guys were sunglasses-wearing, long-haired and bearded drone/sludge rockers highly reminiscent of Pontiak among others. Very loud and thunderous, they caused a very strange sensation at times – the singer’s voice seemed occasionally to cause your brain to throb when he held a note, one of those feelings which uneasily straddles pleasure and horror.

Andy Johnson
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/09/golden-animals-jericho-tavern-oxford-190809/


A short review of our set the other week supporting Golden Animals. Click the link for a full review of the gig, including Vixens and Golden Animals sets.
Got a few more gigs lined up for the next couple of months, supporting the Notorious Hi-Fi Killers at the Celler on the 24th of September, and ILikeTrains at the Bullingdon in October.

Oxford Punt Reviews

We played the Oxford Punt earlier this month. Organised by Nightshift Magazine the Punt is a mini festival held across many venues in one evening in Oxford.

Here are some snippets of reviews from that night.

"Sprial 25 turn The Cellar into a dark womb of numb bliss and stoned
paranoia with their molasses-thick drone rock. It’s a claustrophobic
experience, an expertly controlled swirling fug of heavy grooves and
sweeping vocals, with definite narcotic nods to the likes of Spiritualized,
Loop and The Jesus and Mary Chain."

Oxford Bands, May 23rd 2009

"Adding bricks to this wall-of-distortion, Spiral 25 were also well received. Similar to the psychedelia of The Black Angels, they flooded the room in a dense fog, put on black sunglasses and drew forth waves of mystic, textured Rock."

Brendan Morgan
Bearded Magazine, May 24th 2009

Indiesurf E.P Review

Spiral 25 debuted with their great EP here. They can be really good doing live shows. When you listen to their EP, there would be not much difference to seeing them live as they manage to stamp their live and jamming sound to their music, whatever track they play. :-)

Spiral 25 EP opens with “Let The Light Shine On”. It was quite an explosive track with the guitar keeps on strumming in the background. When Russell comes in with his vocals, this track then starts to have a very shoegaze appeal. It takes a while for the guitar to warm up though. You can hear it when the music takes a different dive into a new rhythm. And once it gets there, it would be hard for you to get out of that comfort zone as the guitar is too tasty to let go. It really has a jamming sound to it, from start to end. It worths the wait for the guitar to reach its peak and eventually going sort of wild. Spiral 25 are showing some potential here. :-)

“Signals” has a slower and softer start with the plucking guitar that never seems to get worn off. Once it picks up and the tempo notches a few gears up, you can hear Russell singing in an echoic surrounding, as if they were in a small and closed room. Further and slowly into this track, Spiral 25 can be heard going wild with the music, until it’s hard to make out what they’re singing. The only thing that catches my attention is the music though. Everytime after a series of pacy music and vocals, it is able to come down with such delicate touch. Only in the end, the music appears to be on an exploring mode. ;-) Not a bad track by Spiral 25. ;-)

“Shadows In Line” almost has a similar intro as Signals. Its distant guitar which eventually appears to be on a rock and roll mode is hardly expected. Moreover, it’s really good! And most of the time, i hardly pay attention to Russell. My attention is automatically diverted to the guitar of this track. However, patience is much needed when listening to this track. The real magic of this track only comes at 1:46 minute mark. The build-up is just an appetizer to bring us to the next level to enjoy the main course. Spiral 25 are getting me excited! :-D

“Today’s Future (Tomorrow’s Past)” has a harmonica opening. It is soon joined by the restless guitar that never seems to have the word “Tired” in its dictionary. Surprisingly, the more i listen to this track, the more country-rock element is coming together. Spiral 25 might just have combined psychedelic rock and shoegaze with country-rock. The core instruments here are the harmonica and the guitar. Together with Russell’s vocals that are just nice for Spiral 25’s music genre, Today’s Future (Tomorrow’s Past) is a big closer for their EP. ;-)

Rating: Spiral 25 are so much fun to listen to if you’re a big fan of shoegaze, psychedelic and lo-fi music genres. They are really raw on their debut EP. As raw as it sounds, it doesn’t have much flaw on this EP. Everything seems to work out just fine within the genres of theirs. With the lo-fi sound that they have, i would say they need not another chance to re-discover their music direction. They have already found their trademark sound. It’s just a matter of time before they have a large fanbase, which can be an easy process with the help of the Internet. I’m definitely a fan of Spiral 25 now and would love to hear more from them in the future. Great stuff! Spiral 25 scores 7.5 out of 10. ;-)

Stand-Out Tracks (My Picks): Let The Light Shine On, Signals, Shadows In Line and Today’s Future (Tomorrow’s Past).

Fan of psychedelic rock and shoegaze? Come grab Spiral 25 EP by Spiral 25 to whet your ever growing appetite right now.

Darren Tan
www.indiesurf.com, May 15th 2009

Spiral 25 E. P. Review

"SPIRAL 25
‘Spiral 25 EP’
(Own Label)
Rock and roll’s dark side of the street – the side where the pimps and smack dealers and rakish leather-clad waifs exist in eternal shadow – has always held a more seedily romantic lure than the sunny side. From The Velvet Underground’s speed’n’smack rock experimentalism through The Stooges, Spacemen 3 and Warlocks, the needle traces a blackened line that can veer off at strange, exotic tangents or spiral forever inwards. Here’s where you’ll find Spiral 25, the band, lest we forget, formed by assorted members of The Factory, arguably one of Oxford’s great lost bands, certainly of recent years. Reconvened after a brief time under the moniker Dirty Sci-Fi, guitarist Chris Monger, bassist Joe Chapman and drummer Andy Proper have recruited guitarist Sunny Singh and vocalist Russell Denham, a singer in the spaced-out and devotional mode of Jim Morrison, and set out to dig their musical furrow deep and claustrophobic. They wear their influences not so much on their sleeves as stamped on their foreheads but confidently and with singleminded unselfconsciousness, and as they lay down a groove as black as a fallen angel’s armpit, guitars providing a shifting pattern of textures over the relentless rhythm, you’re lost in a flotation tank full of tar and treacle, the hymnal ‘Let The Light Shine On’ spiralling through Loop’s heavy-duty psychedelia with grim, morbid determination, while ‘Signals’ bubbles spaceward from its subterranean beginnings, a kindred spirit to Spacemen 3’s ‘Things Will Never Be The Same’.
As the mood darkens through the EP, Spiral 25 really hit bedrock with ‘Today’s Future
(Tomorrow’s Past)’, exhuming those old blues via The Doors’ ‘The End’ and a ceaseless narcotic grind that’s so thick with soot you feel you need to scrub out your lungs by the time it finishes. It may be a musical cliché but this is one CD you really must play at excruciating volume to do it full justice. Thankfully, if the neighbours do call the police, you’ll be so whacked out on the pretty fractal patterns in your head you won’t even mind when they cart you off."

Dale Kattack
Nightshift, Oxford's Music Magazine. March 2009.

"slowmotion narcotic groove rock"

SPIRAL 25
The Cellar, 16/08/2007

Tonight's drug of choice is acid and the flange pedal is king. Both bands
are well named, each hinting at the journey they're set upon.
Spiral 25 are making their first live outing tonight, formed by various
members of the much-missed Factory and tonight intent on
digging a deep, dark hole of slowmotion narcotic groove rock.

They're hairy and blissed-out, spaced-out vocals riding the heavily
opiated guitars, often recalling Loop's more dark-minded take on
psychedelia. The highlight of their set comes near the close when, just
as you've got their spiralling mantra nailed the guitarist picks up a
harmonica and they hit an even more claustrophobic groove. Barring
another implosion, Spiral 25 will be one of the local bands to lose your
mind to in the coming months.

Dale Kattack
Nightshift September 2008