The Black Angels

In September 2003, two friends attended a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show at the Emo’s East venue in Austin, Texas. The opening band that night featured up to nine people on stage, two drummers, multiple guitarists, and a whole lotta vibe. That group was an at the time little-known outfit who called themselves The Warlocks.

After the show, one friend turned to the other and said “Man…we gotta get a band going.” Those two guys were Christian Bland and Alex Maas. They did start a band, and they called their group The Black Angels.

Speaking from Colorado as The Black Angels move their way west across the US, guitarist/vocalist Christian Bland took some time out to reflect on the band’s current tour.

“We’re in Colorado now, we play here tomorrow night…then we’ll head west through Salt Lake [City, Utah], and end up playing a show at The Fillmore. We’re headlining there for the first time and we’re very excited, it’s the perfect place for us to play.”

Snaking their way to the famed San Francisco auditorium, The Black Angels are out on the road on the back of their latest long player Indigo Meadow. The follow up to 2010’s Phosphene Dream, Indigo Meadow is the fourth full-length studio album the Texan group has released.

While the new album has been criticised by some reviewers as slightly formulaic, it’s hard to fault a band for leaning on a formula they have developed so strongly.

In fairness, Indigo Meadow doesn’t seek to deploy high energy ‘hit songs’ as much as it infiltrates the mind with a slow creep. It doesn’t move at the pace of previous records, but comes packed full of grit.

There are certainly deviations to their prior work, which one should expect of a seasoned group now deep into a recording career. That being said, stand-out tracks such as “You’re Mine” are a reminder that The Black Angels have a strong signature sound that is uniquely their own.

As a keen collector of vintage organs, Bland relished the chance to feature keys more prominently than on past records. Tracks such as “Love Me Forever” and “The Day” bring whistling Farfisa sounds to the fore, whimsically melting in and around the droning echoes of vocalist Alex Maas’ heavily treated melodies. “Alex [Maas] did a great job with the organ, and I got to play a little too…”, says Bland.

“It had always been our vision for Psychfest to be held outdoors, out in a meadow. You lose a little control taking things outdoors with things like weather and sound, but it’s what we always set out to do”.

Indigo Meadow also presented the first opportunity for the group to collaborate with the very talented John Congleton, a producer who has worked with the likes of David Byrne, The Polyphonic Spree, and Explosions In The Sky to name but a few.

“[Congleton] is a great engineer and mixer too,” remarks Bland. “He meshed well, almost as another member of the group. He understands our influences and his suggestions or input were nothing we felt was outlandish.”

The arrangement seems to have served The Black Angels well. Originally scheduled for release during the (American) summer of 2012, Indigo Meadow took a little more incubation time than first anticipated. Having written prolifically prior to production, the group entered Sonic Ranch studio with 30 songs in the bag. This was whittled down to 16 for consideration and further development, with 13 making the final cut.

The remaining three songs may well be released in the future. “We’d really like to release a 10-inch with those three songs, and maybe a couple more,” reveals Bland, when asked what was to become of the material.

The extra production time and expertise of Congleton shines through to present the group in a more harmonious and polished light, deviating slightly from the textured layers of delay and jangle that have almost become their signature sound.

The Black Angels (through their offshoot The Reverberation Appreciation Society) also play curator/hosts for the annual Austin Psychfest music festival. With a daily attendance almost double that of last year; the 2013 festival was, for the first time, held outdoors at the picturesque Carson Creek Ranch just outside of Austin.

“It had always been our vision for [the festival] to be held outdoors, out in a meadow,” says Bland. “You lose a little control taking things outdoors with things like weather and sound, but it’s what we always set out to do”.

There are plans to expand the festival during 2014, and the rumours surrounding an event in Melbourne seem to hold true, with the group expressing their vision to collaborate with local curators and artists down under.

From humble beginnings in 2008 as an unofficial ‘lead-up’ event to the formidable SXSW, Bland recounts the inaugural festival featuring, “11 [mostly local] bands and was held at the Red Barn Theatre. I mean, we called it a theatre, but it was just a big barn that we rented. The day after the festival ended, the owner said he never wanted to see us again. I guess things got a little too wild for him or something.”

“It feels like we were just there and we feel lucky to be able to come back. It’s very surprising that we’re liked so much in Australia, it’s beautiful down there and it’s mind-blowing to be asked back so soon.”

The opportunity in subsequent years to invite and host such influential acts as The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dead Meadow, Roky Erickson, and this year both Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Warlocks, is an opportunity that Bland describes as “just surreal”.

Locally, The Black Angels have been very well received since first touring Australia in 2011, further embedding themselves into local psych folklore with a blistering tour on the back of the 2012 Harvest festival circuit. The Australian fascination is something the group still finds surprising. “It feels like we were just there and we feel lucky to be able to come back. It’s very surprising that we’re liked so much in Australia, it’s beautiful down there and it’s mind-blowing to be asked back so soon.”

It’s no secret that psychedelic music has enjoyed a strong resurgence these past few years, a movement that some have hailed as the third incarnation of psychedelia. Groups like The Black Angels appreciate that while trends do appear to cycle naturally, the movement never really disappeared.

“The ‘60s was obviously a very creative time, not just in music but in art, in advertising,” muses Bland. “There was a spirit in the air. It continued through the ‘70s with bands like The Doors and [Pink] Floyd, the ‘80s gave us the likes of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus And Mary Chain, flowing into the ‘90s with Dead Meadow, Clinic, BJM, Black Rebel…”

Whether they are riding the wave that seems to come around every 20 odd years, or whether they blazing further down a trail forged by psychedelic forefathers, one thing is certain – The Black Angels crystallise what it means to have vision, what it means to truly collaborate, and what it means to have the fortitude and belief to execute on that vision.

The fact that they have released some very excellent records of their own along the way is just the icing on the cake.