| CD REVIEW Space Probe Taurus |
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Band : Space Probe Taurus Incredible, how some bands are stuborn enough to carry on delivering demo upon demo, remaining on a low profile throughout the years of their existence. Sweden's Space Probe Taurus started out as Snake Machine back in 1992 in a line-up comprising guitarist Per Boder, bass player Ola Sjoberg, and drummer Sundler first name unknown to me). In those days the guys intended to play a dirty Rock inspired by Mudhoney and early Monster Magnet, and needing some material to attract a singer, they recorded their 4-track debut demo Skinned Women And Mescaline during 1993 with Boder and Sjoberg taking care of half the vocals each. One year further in time finds the line-up enhanced with singer Enberg (again, no first name known) and come back with second demo Ride The Wildbeast, which was a deviation from their first demo as the guys had been listening far too much to '70s Hard Rock at the time. Enberg left the band soon after the recordings of that sophomore demo, but he eventually returned to the band as bassist in 2003. But that is jumping ahead in time, so let's return to the period of 1994-96, during which the remaining trio re-found their original inspiration and started off inro a Space Rock territory very much inspired by Hawkwind, which resulted in tracks that would be drawn out up to 10 minutes, drenched in all kinds of spacey effects. At the start of '97 the guys started to change their sound agin, back to what they wanted for the band in the first place with songs geared toward a more Dirty Rock and of shorter caliber. The guys felt a change of band name was warranted, and as they're b-movie fanatics they chose to steal the title of some obscure '60s Sci-Fi flick. The band had actually rehearsed with a new singer for a while, but when time came to record their 1997 demo Low On Karma...High On Speed they decided against it. At this time the line-up arrangements had changed to see Ola also play guitar for a fuller sound, the band employing Johan Carlsson (of Speranza) as session bassist during the recordings. Ola decided to try out as singer, but didn't like what he did...Johan was put behind the mike, and the result wasn't any better...eventually Ola returned to the mike in a totally pissed-off mood, shouting at the top of his lungs...and that's what they kept. It was decided then and there that he would remain the lead singer from that moment on. Another decision (which they honoured until 2003) was to use some distortion on his voice. The guys were still very much a pure studio act at the time, so they didn't bother looking for a bass player, but songs were now written somewhat differently as a singer would be available during each rehearsal session, and 1998's 4-track demo Hallucination Genaration was recorded in the same line-up, again using Carlsson as bassist. Around this time befriended movie maker Richard R. Anasky asked the trio for a musical contribution to his upcoming movie I Am Vengeance, which would be released in 2001, the guys donating their newly recorded demo's opening track "Calling Cosmos". Soon after Hallucination Generation, the same line-up issued their third 4-track demo Acid Worship. A little time later Brainticket Records offered to compile the 3 demos and put them on a CD as the band's debut album, but the boys turned the offer down, feeling each demo only sprouted one or two songs they were really content with. The guys' first song on an actual release would be the track "Dancing Jupiter" (a track which they'd had under their belt for quite a while but never recorded before...and since studio time was free...), which was issued on 1999 compilation CD-single Vol.2 released by Speedball Entertainment,ran by the place where they always had and still have their rehearsal place. It's actually a cover of Hawkwind's "Master Of The Universe", but in a style quite of SPT. For this occasion Ola was forced to play the bass as well, but that was alright since the band was still a studio act. At the same time, the guys recorded a cover of Blue Cheer's "Second Time Around", released later the same year on Italian label Black Windows's compilation album "Blue Explosion – A Tribute To Blue Cheer". The year 2000 came, and with it the re-recording of the track "Insect City" (off the Acid Worship demo) and two additional songs for the 7-inch EP Insect City, released through Game Two imprint (of which only 200 copies were printed...one of which I can call myself the happy owner of). The EP saw the introduction of bassist/ organ player Stälhammar, but a uear later he was already ousted just prior to a gig. To make a long story short (you can always go check out the more detailed history in the blogs the band placed on their MySpace page), the band continued to donate songs to three compilations, recorded a total of 5 more demos (with Boder leaving in 2002, Eronen took over second guitar...as well as hadling the bass)...before Anasky (see earlier) asked Ola again for a couple of songs for a new movie titled Actress Apocalypse. Actually meant, "Can you do the whole soundtrack?", which the band eventually did by compiling a toal of 14 songs from their demos recorded between 2001 and 2003. The music was featured throughout the movie, but the DVD release of the movie included a separate CD with all the material on it. In essence, this was the band's debut full-length of sorts! The producer of that movie then asked if the band' wasn't interested in creating the theme song for his upcoming movie Hollywood She-Wolf. So they wrote "She-Wolf, Baby", recorded a demo version, sent it over to the producer..which he liked, so they went into a proper studio to record it decently. Let's remember that Enberg returned to the fold as bassist/ backing singer (that last function also performed by Eronen by the way) in December 2003, and it's in this line-up (which has remained stable since) that the track was recorded. With that lengthy interluce behind us, the band recorded two more demos in 2005 and one in 2007. In September and November 2004, the guys took time to re-record a full-length of old demo tracks (7 of which were already available in their demo form on the Actress Apocalypse soundtrack) in a co-production with Johan Carlsson (who also mixed the album in February 2005), which they sent out to different labels...one of the first being Belgium's Buzzville. They were interested alright, but first all they wanted was to put a song on their 2005 double compilation album Rock 'n' Roll Blvd. The band chose the track "Psi-Burn" off the album to be featured on the sampler! If I hadn't mentioned it before, the bnd's style is an Acid Fuzz Rock with resemblances to the likes of Mudhoney, The Stooges, MC5, and most of all Blue Cheer, heavily influenced by the late '60s Psych Rock scene as well as the fuzzed out Rock instrumentals used in biker movies of that era. Stoner fanatics, who freuently get a good buy from Buzzville, may find the music somewhat too up-tempo, but wellbecoming in their overall tonalities. Check it all out for yourselves by surfing to myspace.com/spaceprobetaurus, where the band posted two songs off the album alongside a couple more recent tracks. Personally, I love...how about you? 90/100 Tony. |