The Black Angels: Death Is Salvation

Words by: Chris Pacifico

The Black Angels

“Just today, Maas and I were walking down the street and there was a brand new Hummer pulled over on the side of the road,” says Black Angels bassist Nate Ryan, talking about a stroll he took earlier in the day with lead vocalist Alex Maas as he and his fellow Angels prepared for their first headlining show in Philadelphia. “There’s two cop cars around it and there was all these fur coats and ladies shoes on the ground. We walk by the cop car and we see this ugly guy sitting in the back seat and he’s wearing a patent leather dress.” What Ryan and Maas witnessed was a transvestite who’d stolen a slew of expensive women’s garments as well as a brand new, oversized sport utility vehicle. To regular Philadelphians, bizarre crimes are just a normal occurrence but to a crew of young musicians from Austin, Texas it’s a wee bit of a culture shock.

The Black Angels’ sound is unapologetically psychedelic and dark. Their debut, Passover (released in 2006 on Light In The Attic), is something that you wouldn’t want to find yourself listening to alone in the middle of the night while a thunder storm rages and rumbles outside your windows. Or is it? The record was born from a culture of turbulence in response to the Iraq war while considering the social upheaval of the 1960’s and how it’s all coming back to bite us in the ass today, proving that history does repeat itself and that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.

“There is a parallel between now and the ’60s,” says Maas. The themes of war and thought control and their dismal side effects on the public psyche make up part of The Black Angels’ lyrical content. It’s such a parallel that these twenty-somethings frequently see audience members from that era at their gigs, which humbles the whole band. “Older guys in their sixties down here [in Philly] tried to help us load gear on stage. They’re like, ‘We’re just big fans of you guys’ and whatnot. I think maybe they’re like 55. I think it’s cool how like [some people at shows] are like ‘Man, I saw The Doors three times.'”

The Black Angels by Josh Miller

Tension and turbulence from time immemorial is what The Black Angels convey and they convey it well through the constriction in Maas’ tension filled warble. Keyboardist Jennifer Raines, dubbed the “Drone Machine” operator, is visibly swept up in the sonic vapors emitted by her playing, a palpable chemistry every member exhibits in their live rapport. “Every performance is kind of like a religious experience or a ceremony. We don’t get to church on Sunday but it’s church every night when we play,” says guitarist Christian Bland. “Slash temple,” adds drummer Stephanie Bailey.

Johnny Brenda’s, the Philadelphia venue where the Angels performed, has provided the band with an enormous platter piled with an assortment of hummus, oysters and olives from their restaurant downstairs. Since this is Philly, a half assed infrastructure and cut corners are second nature to its citizens. Most live music venues that serve food give musicians the grub that is a hair away from spoiling as an amenity in the green rooms. I learned this the hard way later on that night when I got home and shuddered to think how the band would fare in their van. But, for the moment, the lads get their chow on. After all, when you’re on tour even a Big Mac can seem like a juicy steak from Morton’s.

Most of them hack with a smoker’s cough, and even though their music is rather morose, gloomy, creepy and impending, offstage they’re the most jovial, happy-go-lucky crew of kids you’ll ever meet, smiling and laughing throughout a conversation punctuated by their collective cough, answering each question as if they haven’t been asked it a million times before.

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Every performance is kind of like a religious experience or a ceremony. We don’t get to church on Sunday but it’s church every night when we play. -Christian Bland

Maas and Bland have been friends since they were children. “We were always into doing creative things and creating different stuff,” Bland recalls before detailing how he and Maas went their separate ways after graduating high school before meeting up again in Austin in November of 2002. “We tried to form bands and we probably went through about 50 different people before we came upon The Black Angels, which started in May of 2004”.

The Black Angels by Dave Vann

18 months and a little over four dozen revolving door members later, The Black Angels were formed. It was only a year later, after long bouts of practicing, that Seattle’s Light in the Attic Records came calling after being blown back by a gig at Trophy’s Sports Bar in Austin. After releasing an eponymous EP late in 2005, Passover was released the following spring and proved to be the greatest album that no one saw coming in 2006. Accolades of critics and bloggers along with heavy rotation on KEXP, Seattle’s premiere public radio station which rakes in some of the largest amounts of listeners throughout the world via streaming internet broadcasts, helped spread the word. “Besides the internet, KEXP did more work for us than some other people that are working for us,” snickers Maas.

Passover‘s lyrical themes of war, collusion of the mind and paranoia touch on the Vietnam “conflict,” the Cold War and the political fear mongering of today. “The First Vietnam War” is the most potently shocking song on the subject since Alice in Chains’ “Rooster,” which was inspired by AIC guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s father’s experiences in the service during that war. The “first” in title of “The First Vietnam War” suggests the rote of history and serves as a painful reminder that many have forgotten the socio-political lessons of the ’60s. The song is a stark walk through the frontlines, capturing the fear when thing are a little too quiet, waiting while not knowing who is your enemy or where they are lurking. The correspondence between Vietnam and the present Iraq conflict becomes clear when Maas sings, “Sixty thousand men died/ While you were here/ You came into our homes/ And you took our kids/ And you ask for more now/ For this new war.”

The Black Angels

“However the music feels I think it produces the lyrics,” offers Bland. “The feeling of what these guys do is what creates the lyrical images,” adds Maas. Emitting all over internet radio like an unspecified energy field, Passover is a vivid paradigm of desert charred psych rock sifted through greats like the Velvet Underground, Silver Apples, Can, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division and the 13th Floor Elevators, with nods to contemporaries such as the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Each individual band member has divergent musical tastes that are, for the most part, shared. “We all have different influences but we’re pretty much rooted in the same stuff,” offers Maas. Bland adds, “The 50 members it took for us to get to this point, those members didn’t dig the same kind of stuff that we did. We stumbled upon the right people that had the same interest as us in music so we draw from the same influences but add our own twist on everything.”

The Angels spent the better part of late 2006 and early ’07 touring with The Black Keys through America and Europe, where they were warmly received. “They loved us,” grins Bland, speaking of the European fans. “It’s pretty amazing playing to sold out crowds on a first time tour.”

So far this year, the Angels have toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, VietNam, opened shows for the Smashing Pumpkins and Queens of the Stone Age. They already have 13 songs recorded for their follow-up album and are cutting a split EP with Black Mountain on the Ace Fu label. The Black Angels may be channeling spirits of the past, but this is a band set on conquering the future.

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