Only the most seasoned stoner rockers might remember Palm Desert, a band that, despite its tropical moniker, actually hailed from Poland. (Their 2011 album Falls of the Wastelands was pretty decent.) While that outfit was all about the Kyuss worship, its rhythm section now makes up two-thirds of Spaceslug, which might be the Polish sausage to Ufomammut’s Italian sausage. (Mmm, street meat…)
Eye the Tide is actually the band’s third album since 2016, released on Polish indie label BSFD Records. Much like Ufomammut, there are no short songs here, with six cuts ranging from eight to over 11 minutes. “Obsolith” sets the tone with a slow, mellow, space sludge intro, with a bit of OM’s oriental vibes. The first heavy riff hits about 90 seconds in, along with an airy, meditative vocal. The lightness of atmosphere combined with heavy guitars make for a positively transcendent experience.
“Spaced by One” has a bit of that mellow desert rock vibe (I’m thinking Brant Bjork and the Bros), but it’s been strained through a cosmic filter. The vocals are definitely more suggestive of space rock. The extended instrumental passages in this one do drag on a little too long, though. Likewise, “Eternal Monuments” takes a little time to get going, lingering on the more melodic side of things for the first three and a half minutes. It also tends to linger on a repetitive riff around the six-minute mark.
“Words Like Stones” is not too far from latter day Neurosis…at least until they drop in a black metal passage around the four-minute mark. They also throw in some violin a couple minutes later in what is overall a pretty solid post-sludge tune. After the mellow, meandering “Vialys Part I and II,” the album ends with “I, the Tide,” an 11-minute number that is pleasant, if not impactful. I might say the same about this record as a whole.
