The Black Angels: Death Song review – a menacing return to form

Given their name and their ongoing fixation with how the Velvet Underground’s Sister Ray encapsulated the dark side of the 1960s, perhaps the biggest surprise surrounding Death Song is that it has taken Texan psych-rockers the Black Angels five albums to finally hit upon that title. Pleasingly, following a hit-and-miss attempt to incorporate more whimsical strains of psychedelia into their sound on 2013’s Indigo Meadow, their fifth album marks a return to the threatening drones that made their first two so powerful. Comanche Moon is built on a particularly ferocious riff, while the influence of the 13th Floor Elevators permeates throughout. The general air of menace lifts just once, on the stately space-rock of Life Song, a strangely uplifting closer at odds with all that’s gone before.