So I recently had the good fortune of having Dr. Space from Øresund Space Collective (ØSC) reach out to me with some new releases slated for this month to preview. So cool! Thank you!
Dr. Space is involved with several bands, lending his talents to of course ØSC, Doctors Of Space, Black Moon Circle and many other bands. Check out his Bandcamp page here:
https://drspace1.bandcamp.com/
As I am in the process of moving time is sparse, but I really wanted to get these reviews out. In fact, while driving boxes to the area of our upcoming move I played out one of my early fantasies of reviewing records in my tricked out van, writing notes and stopping in cities along the way to mail out reviews and pick up new material. I was far younger then. At any rate, I was tooling down the road blasting “Doctors Of Space – The Covid Sessions” and talking notes into my phone. It was a blast.
So, the album
“Doctors Of Space – The Covid Sessions”
Here is the Bandcamp link to Doctors Of Space.
https://doctorsofspace.bandcamp.com/
Doctors of Space is a new project that features Dr Space from Øresund Space Collective/Black Moon Circle and Dr Martin Weaver from Wicked Lady/Dark fame. Dr Space does the synths, Martin creates the drums, bass and guitars. Futuristic space rock!
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this but from the first track I dug it. The first track “Apollo Groove” is very spacey with lots of note runs and waves of sound flowing in and out with lots of reverberation and layers of slushy guitar. This is 10+ minutes of jam and experimentation.
“Hold My Beer” has a quick vocal from Dr. Space’s very distinctive voice and what follows is a very beautiful almost acoustic guitar set with again lots of layering and sound treatments.
“From The Depths Of The Universe” gave me the sense of being in space flying past a black hole. I could imagine blue sparks and there seemed like an immense and powerful feel to the sound throughout this song. The space vibe was all over this one. This may be my favorite track of the entire album. A moody piece.
“Viral Ursuper” starts off with a bunch of coughing ( a nod to Covid I’m sure) then this one turns up the blues guitar. There is a really great scorching rhythm section throughout. Shades of Black Sabbath? At over 12+ minutes, it was over too quickly.
“Afro Ghost Ritual 47” starts off with a really awesome sort of tribal drum beat with a huge bass/synth (?) line rumbling over the top of it. There are guitar lines that fade in and out and drift in the background not shredding but peaking and adding texture in all the right places. The guitar in this track reminds me a bit of softer David Gilmore. Very nice.
“Funky Caca” has a grindy funk groove to it with again layered guitars and of course lots of effects from Dr. Space. In case you thought they were just all about space, this track is just a good old-fashioned funk rock track with some nice embellishments.
“Drowned In Drone” starts with, you got it, drone, but soon morphs into a groove that reminds me a lot of some of the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack work. Very thick and had me doing a slow head bang as I sped down the road.
“Untouchable Trademark” has lots of note flows like in the very first song of the album, experimenting with popping notes here and there and weaving them together with a continuous pumping bass line. At times the note flows reminded me a bit of the sound of a harpsichord. A very beautiful track.
“White Star Turns Pink” is a gentle and graceful end to the album. Acoustic guitar and flowing space layers until the very end. A nice closer.
I like the way both guys augment each other. They are really a great combination and although there is definitely a spacey feel to most of the album, there is plenty of straight up guitar and jams for any music lover to dig on throughout. I would not hesitate to recommend this album.
While there check out “Doctors Of Space – First Treatment” too. Another good one!
The Aural Retentive 