Big Scenic Nowhere released their full length Vision Beyond Horizon only months after their debut EP Dying on The Mountain, and less than a year after that they return with a new EP Lavender Blues. With the band being more of a project between members of other bands, you would think that getting everyone together and writing would only happen a couple of times a year, but even if it is, Big Scenic Nowhere have a magic sixth sense between them and just turn on the tape over a long weekend, and a wealth of creativity and musicianship just spills out every time.
Towards the end of 2019 the four continuing members: Bob Balch (Fu Manchu), Gary Arce (Yawning Man), Tony Reed (Mos Generator) and Bill Stinson (Yawning Man) were joined this time with: Per Wiberg (Kamchatka, Opeth), Daniel Mongrain (Voivod) and the legend that is Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), and have managed to put down on tape 3 songs that have the distinctive Big Scenic Nowhere sound, but this time
The whole of side A contains the 13+ minute title track Lavender Blues, which starts like a slow meander into some place warm and distant. There is a real feeling that Lavender Blues has been jammed out and evolved into something so unique right in front of the players with the warm psychedelic feel it gives out, their inner-prog just blossoms.
As the first real synthesizer solo kicks and lifts you up to the next level, I am getting that feeling like I’m being pulled away into one of those vast Roger Dean paintings, with all its organic world within another world complexities. It’s like taking desert musicians out of the warm dusty sun soaked open sprawl of the low desert and putting them into a world of blue and green with long winding rivers and upside down trees.
As a song, Lavender Blues has that much through the 13+ minutes, every time I listen to it, I hear something different.
Like a complete contrast to side A, Blink of an Eye is your favorite soundtrack from a 70’s movie that you used to dig in your teenage years. The opening chords have the feeling of closing a door for the final time and heading off to pastures new. With a mid-paced hook that is extremely catchy, there a positive vibe to it, as though you’re nodding at that person you recognise as your walking off into the evening sunshine.
I wouldn’t say it has the radio rock feel, but it’s a close as Big Scenic Nowhere have come to giving you an upbeat catchy track that will be stuck in your head all day. It is though, the kind of song that Tony’s voice is made for, be it the rich vocal strength he has or the ability to fit perfectly in harmonies.
As Blink of an Eye concludes, the guitars start to pick up and drift towards a place that they can soar into those huge open spaces, before the synthesizers take over and spill out a range of 70’s prog power which will make each and every one of us remember how to rock the air keyboard.
Labyrinths Fade starts with a fade-in, something I haven’t head in a while, but it works well as the riff rolls in a repeats with more of a classic rock feel to it. There is some truly epic solos that intertwine some technical mastery over the big soaring layers of guitar, that sound like they have input from the fingers of Daniel Mongrain. When the vocals do appear that have a deep hypnotic chant to them, which play well off solo after solo. The big synthesizers appear again so that you know they’re still about, before the rest of Labyrinths Fade shows off a bunch of killer musicians coming together and producing something quite magic.
At the time of writing this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have already turned the tape on again in the studio and pressed record. It’s just a shame that the ongoing pandemic halted their planned live shows, but you know that something good will be just around the corner. Roll on 2021.
Big Scenic Nowhere – Bandcamp – Heavy Psych Sounds
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