Austin, TX’s Black Angels have risen to join psychedelia’s premier standard bearers in the decade or so since they found their way onto the world’s radar after the release of their first LP Passover. On that debut, they emerged damn near fully-formed, proffering a pastiche of riveting Spacemen 3 drones, stoneriffic Sabbathy heaviness, and an entrancing darkness worthy of the Velvet Underground song from which they purloined their name. But though they’ve released four albums (with #5 on the way), their reputation was built as a live act, thanks to utterly immersive performances of practically cinematic hugeness. This made them naturals to serve as backup musicians for their fellow Austinite Roky Erickson when he returned to the stage in 2008 to perform 13th Floor Elevators songs for the first time in decades, a meeting of the minds documented on the DVD Night of the Vampire. They’ve taken on a curatorial bent, as well—band members Christian Bland and Alex Maas are principals in Austin’s annual Levitation Festival (previously known as Austin Psych Fest), which has been a destination for fans of stoner, psych, shoegaze, and related musics since 2008.
By titling their forthcoming fifth album Death Song, the Black Angels have rather cheekily completed the loop on the V.U. joke they undertook when they formed, and the album seems to split the difference between their first two records relentless droneyness and their subsequent exploration of shorter, hookier songs, opening with the hypnotic lament “Currency,” a meditation on the role of money in our culture and our lives. Singer Maas took some time to discuss that subject with Dangerous Minds.
It’s something that’s been bothering me for a long time, the way the whole monetary system is smoke and mirrors, this kind of mirage, an illusion between the Fed, the Treasury, and us. I’ve always been confused by how that system actually works.
The song is kind of a reaction to what’s happening in the world—but that’s all art, isn’t it? Not to say that art is political in itself, but if you’re going to say anything it might as well be important to you. There are threads on the record that go through every song, and we’re inspired to write music by the unknown, and fears about where the world might be headed, that’s kind of a golden thread through all our work. You can tie money and greed into a lot of the songs that we wrote on this record, and we’ve touched on that before.
America is obviously a toxic place to live in right now, and I think the new record speaks to that toxicity, the greed, and the illusion that people in power have any interest in what’s best for the world.
The album’s called Death Song, but a lot of the songs are about greed, apathy, temptation, and violence. Dangerous Minds is privileged today to bring you the premiere of the album’s second video, for “I’d Kill for Her.” The song ties love and beauty to violence, but the video, a montage of historical stock footage, suggests that the violence in question could be political in nature, raising questions about what makes violence attractive. Sweet guitar part in the chorus, too. Maas offered this illumination of the song:
Why do people do what they do? If love is the most primitive motivator, then why do we do such ugly things for survival? The conviction of survival makes the world seem black and white but we were given color.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Roky Erickson and The Black Angels live!