Pektop ‘Black Moonshine’ CDEP/DD 2013

Back in the 80’s hardcore punk heroes Discharge did a musical about face from grinding, lightning fast 3 chord hardcore to teased up glam drenched heavy metal…and in the same breath lost the vast majority of their fan base. Sometimes though a band can adapt and change their sound very much for the better.

Pektop’s previous EP, “The Antikythera Mechanism” was a decent, if under produced piece of stonerish instrumental post metal. It was a release that clearly showed the band had talent but was a little way off fully realising it. On this new EP they almost sound like a different band, a band that musically has stripped itself down into a lean riff hungry beast. Opener “Sea Of Trees” continues the instrumental theme of the first release but with a gutsier more straight ahead approach to riffing that takes more from the Kyuss rule book than it does Pelican…obviously a good thing…a very good thing. This biggest surprise, however, is saved for the title track which is all balls out 70’s inspired boogie riffing and features…vocals…yes vocals!!! Pektop have now become a 4 piece with the singing talents of Joachim who brings a raw bluesy howl to the band’s sound reminiscent of Rose Tattoo’s Angry Andersen.

The energy is maintained through “On The Rise”, another up tempo blast that also hints at a slight Eastern vibe yet remains relentless throughout as does the closer “From The Thunderdome” which betrays a slight shade of The Stooges in its simplistic robotic riffing.

This EP sees Pektop releasing their inner rocker and ditching some of the compositional excesses of their first EP. Having a vocalist seems to have given each member more freedom to create space in the music without feeling as though there is a gap that needs filling and the simplifying of the song writing is the thing that makes it all the more effective. Sound wise this is a definite improvement on the first EP but still suffers a little from muddy guitar tones and a slightly unbalanced mix but hey, this is a young band making steps in the right direction so I’ll cut them some slack on the strength of the material.

So Belgium has some decent rock and roll…who knew!!!!

Label: Self Released
Band Links: Official | Facebook | Bandcamp | Twitter

Scribed by: Ollie Stygall