It was a few weeks ago that Disaster Amnesiac found myself drifting past the cassette section at Wooden Tooth Records on Congress St. in Tucson, a diminutive (in comparison to the vinyl focus of the store) area, yet one filled with an appealing assortment of releases, current and historical. As this drifting occurred one tape grabbed and kept my gaze:
False Prophet by Tucson band Burning Palms. It just had an aura about it, one that convinced me pretty much immediately to carry it on over to the register and make it mine. Very happy to have done so, for within its duration there has been a lot of really groovy listening that's flown from the speakers of two systems a mi casita.
Nightstalker starts the proceedings off and it introduces the overall aesthetic modalities of Burning Palms. The band cooked up a sound that melded Psychedelic guitar tones with elegantly simple percussive pounding and actually sung vocal parts. This blend propels songs which evoke Manchester 1979, or London 1980, or the Los Angeles Divisions of 1981-89 and perhaps certain dudes in East San Francisco Bay circa 1999. Within these similarities though there beats the pounding heart of a band with its own originality, its own voice literally and figuratively. Physically impactful rhythmic playing of a very Stooges-like manner and hooky melodic changes characterize
The Tarot. Raw Goth power. There have been times when Disaster Amnesiac has heard the lyrics of
False Prophet as being some kind of Christian overcoming story, but that is probably my own subjective bias. Still, they tell the tale of some type of renunciation that was a long time coming, and they are insightful. The guitars are flavored in a deliciously South West ways, Surf Punk arpeggio spiraling out over bracing drum kit pound. On
Lies, the addition of Noise touches from electronics and theremin mix with stun guitar sounds and yet another effectively simple drum performance. Burning Palms absolutely stick the ending, too. The group's more experimental side emerges on
Dusk. Disaster Amnesiac has heard it as moody American Industrial Goth of a quite Cleveland 1978 mode. As I've listened to
Wax & Wane, it's been wondered if this one was often used as the climactic event of Burning Palms live sets. It feels as if it could have been played for extended periods as the assembled audiences' consciousnesses aligned with those of the performers in of the moment Rock 'n Roll Bacchanalia. Not that it ever gets messy, though: another drum tight ending leads us to side B...on which
The Pressure drops frenetic key changes and wild feedback which make the song. Faster paced runaway train action in the vocal department means drama! Ritual Psych moves and characteristically appealing vocal moves ride atop fuzzy guitar tones on
Explode. Astute use of shakers and tambourine color and enhance the drums.
Dawn and
The Dagger continue the ritual feel of their predecessor on the second side of
False Prophet. These two songs feel very much of a piece, and I wonder if they were performed as such when Burning Palms hit stages in Arizona and wherever else they traveled to. The latter has a very moving turnaround part after the verses that sends out those blissful melodic steps which never fails to excite. Brandon Ugstad, such a great drummer here and everywhere else on the release. A bit more aggro pacing is used on
Take Me as it drives towards a breakdown. The most Metal sounding title that Burning Palms had is that of
The Sword. It's a mid-paced banger of fuzzed guitar hypnosis! Harmony singing and ceremonial drumming push into a conclusion of rave up moments that end the album perfectly. Such a well performed, engineered, and sequenced document, Burning Palms members Simone Stopford, Daniel Walker, Sathya Honey, Brandon Ugstad, Steve Romaniello, and Sunanda Bruno must have mightily pleased with
False Prophet. Going back to the counter at Wooden Tooth, the guy that was manning it told me that this band's members scattered to the winds a few years back. What can we do to convince them of having a reunion show here in Tucson?
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