The psych supergroup blow us away with their long-awaited second album.
Photo: Bowen Stead | Words: Brad Sked
Seven years after the release of their debut self-titled ablum, MIEN, the supergroup that is Alex Maas (The Black Angels), Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone), John Mark Lapham (The Earlies) and Robb Kidd (Golden Dawn Arkestra) have returned with another sonic blast force of sprawling psychedelia in MIIEN, fittingly released via one of the planet's leading psych labels, Fuzz Club.
The opener of the second outing from the psychonauts is 'Evil People', released as the lead single back in January. This cosmic, motorik titan creates the appropriate feeling of being pulled into a vortex with vacuum-like force. 'Counterbalance' follows this, nodding to Alex Mass' own 'Keep Your Balance' from the 'LEVITATION Sessions' and revelling in the absolute heady with some fuzz-inducing delirium that's akin to Fuzz Club label mates New Candys.
'Silent Golden' doesn't let up with the dosage of intoxicating psychedelia, with its synth-charged space-psych storm. Like being thrown into an intergalactic toaster, the expansive electro space-time ripper feels like having your brain dissolved to nothing but liquid pulp and then just pure atoms… in the best way. 'Mirror', though, feels much more transcendental, more akin to Stereolab and early-Tame Impala, with a sprinkle of Jacco Gardner. An utter lucid ethereal odyssey through the galaxies and beyond, which also exemplifies Mass' criminally underrated songwriting ability, 'Mirror' meanders towards the celestial. Simply stunning psychedelic pop.
A downtempo synth-wave wonder, 'How Could You Run' then brings the feeling of drifting through a kaleidoscopically cyberpunk Blade Runner landscape, neon-lit and full of androids and humans-alike, who have embraced their consciousness and become one. Then comes 'Empty Sun', which is akin to a supernova itself, cataclysmic space-psych and motorik krautrock meeting shoegaze on a battleground of noise. The space sci-fi theme remains with 'Tungsten', a luminous space-pop voyage. Like levitating through a cosmic garden while spirit pixies pirouette through its scintillating prismatic plains, 'Tungsten' could well be the soundtrack to one's consciousness crossing over into the paradise realm itself.
'Knocking On Your Door' brings things down, or up. Kicking things off with some otherworldly ambient electronica fit for a meditation session guided by Alan Watts or Ram Dass, it then drifts into a groove worthy of Neu or CAN. 'Slipping Away' then continues the kraut-inspired good times, morphing into more shamanic fuzz-out headiness, with odd tinges of desert-psych for a Dune-like space joyride across the sand plains. Then comes closer 'Morning Echo', an atmospheric stunner, where the synth-driven space-psychedelic oscillating luminous lullaby makes for a spectral delight.
MIEN's second outing is a forceful return, with the cosmonautic supergroup acting as the closest thing to a real life psychedelic Avengers, collectively bringing forth a galactic gem of a sequel to our mortal lands.
