Christian Berghoff and Sebastian Haas are two lifelong friends from Saarbrucken, Germany who back in 2007 formed the band Pretty Lightning. The duo ticks off a long list of influences – from 60s psych and delta blues through to krautrock and drone – and the end-product is a heady dose of raw, twisted psychedelic-blues recalling an utterly visceral, mind-blowing mix of Oh Sees, Wooden Shjips and early Black Keys.
Fast forward ten years and the German two-piece have two highly-praised LPs behind them and are now gearing up for the third effort, ‘The Rhythm Of Ooze’ – due for release November 10th on Fuzz Club Records. Their latest long player sees them dive even further down the rabbit-hole of stomping garage-blues rhythms and unremitting motoric drones to dizzying effects. This is Pretty Lightning at their best, a head-heavy trip through their lysergic, rock’n’roll prowess.
On the primal call-to-arms of lead single ‘Willow Valley Blues’ Pretty Lightning delve into a howling, visceral garage-rock that doesn’t let loose for a second and on second single ‘This Machine Is Running’, the fuzzed-out guitars and echoing vocals are driven by a formidable gusto, only slowing down to meander into a blast of skewed, deranged keys. This is an album of many faces though, on one hand there’s the stomping garage-rock but on tracks like album opener ‘Thunder Mountain Return’ and ‘Pale Yellow’ they turn things down a notch and allow their warm psychedelic blues to drift off into lucid, tripped-out soundscapes that swirl around mesmerising instrumentals through a thick fog of dust.
‘THE RHYTHM OF OOZE’ TRACKLIST
