After some ambient throat-clearing – the ominously titled “An Eagles Epitaph” – “Luna Mausoleum” gets properly underway with “The Exit List”. A wall of guitars, a smear of organ, and a half-whispered vocal from Kayley “Hell Kitten” Davies that feels less sung than summoned. It’s trippy and heavy in equal measure, like the amps are breathing.
Even the more energetic “Too Many Ghosts” keeps that narcotic haze intact. The bass fuzzes and throbs, Davies murmurs “I’m sensitive to energies,” and you don’t doubt her for a second. Then, without warning, it detonates. Let’s be honest: QOTSA fill arenas with less.
But here’s the thing. Josh Homme and the lads need more than two people to do it – and to my knowledge, they’ve never sounded like a trip-hop band either. This duo do. Frequently. And gloriously.
That’s because Sky Valley Mistress don’t play by anyone’s rules but their own. “House Of The Moon” begins all brittle and fragile, which lasts about five seconds before they kick the door in. Hard. Then they drift back again, pondering “how come forever seems so long”. The strings at the end are equal parts majestic and strange; if you’re not quite sure why they’re there, best not to ask.
“Live Past Life” might be the record’s centrepiece. Sultry yet abrasive, psychedelic and faintly unsettling, it captures exactly what SVM do best. “White Night” adds a shot of soul, but when the groove locks in you’ll inevitably think of Blues Pills – before it veers somewhere else entirely.
“Thundertaker” (and yes, hats off for that name alone) opens with a riff that crushes in pure Sabbath fashion, and aside from a few unexpectedly sweet harmonies, it keeps that weight right through.
Alongside the Hell Kitten stands Commander Max “Leather Messiah” Newsome, and my long-held theory that all two-piece bands are at least a bit unhinged is fully vindicated by the closing nine minutes of glorious noise. “Blue Desert II” – a follow-up to a track from their 2020 debut – is a monster. The organ alone would make Ray Manzarek pause and stroke his chin, the breathless vocals are sensational, and the constant twists and turns refuse to be boxed in. You won’t constrain it. Don’t try.
It’s a perfect ending to a brilliant record.
Eleven years ago – I had to search this very website to confirm it – I saw Sky Valley Mistress at a festival. Back then, I wrote that “to call them good would be to insult them” and suggested they were the best band you’d never heard of, wondering how far they might go.
“Luna Mausoleum” is only their second album, so prolific they are not. But every word from 2015 still stands.
This is as ambitious as it is good.
RATING: 8.5/10
