Brenden Dellar on vocals and guitar, Thomas DiBennedetto on drums, Dylan Donovan on guitar, Evan Wenskay on organ and synth, and Anthony Meier on bass make up the seventies style heavy psychedelic rock quintet Sacri Monti who formed in Oceanside, San Diego, California in 2012.
They release their third studio album `Retrieval` this month.
`Maelstrom` leads us in and the title would suggest chaos or turmoil but here it’s a much more driving, dynamic slice of seventies hard rock tinged with some vibrant guitar riffs that will certainly have you tapping your foot and nodding along. We have a more thoughtful reflective offering with `Desirable Sequel` which opens as a wonderful slow burn that seems to ponder on what we have done to this planet with vocals that seem almost anguished before it really takes of at the two thirds mark and races along in a kind of intoxicating storm before easing back in the dying thirty seconds.
`Intermediate Death` begins with some rapid drumming followed by a swirling organ before the number flattens out and becomes fairly trippy. A tale of struggle and pressure and trying ones best on limited resources. It flows from studious passages to more blistering groove-based rock outs. We enjoy a voyage that ebbs and flows with `Brackish/Honeycomb` where the band really come together. We are led on this progressive come psychedelic journey with crashing and ruminating guitar riffs, pounding drums and some deep and consuming organ tones.
`Moon Canyon` is a cosmic acoustic composition which is fairly minimal in presentation but really draws you into its layers. We close out with `More Than I` which opens gently and takes all sorts of trails as it evolves. The track runs at just under ten minutes in length but never feels overly long but is delightfully contemplative and captivating as you enter its parallel world.
Vocalist Brenden Deller has said of the album and its title “it’s kinda playing with how on certain paths in life you can follow them, and often they can dead-end or become something you didn’t expect, so you have to go back and follow another way, but you pick things up on the way back”.
`Retrieval` is all of this and more, for me I’d recommend not trying to fully understand its concept but just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Rating 8.5/10
