ALBUM REVIEW: Harvestman - "Music For Megaliths"

By: Jack Taylor

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 19/05/2017

Label: Neurot Recordings

an ethereal bagpipe drone, oscillating around your speakers, waves of guitar effects wash over you and the whole choir of eldritch noise comes creeping back into view, then departing again, This is” Music For Megaliths”, the latest record by Harvestman, and as expected, it’s everything you’d want from a Harvestman record and definitely worth a listen for anyone into drone, ambient or progressive music.

“Music For Megaliths” CD//DD//LP track listing:

01. The Forest Is Our Temple
02. Oak Drone
03. Ring Of Sentinels
04. Cromlech
05. Levitation
06. Sundown
07. White Horse

The Review:

It starts with an ethereal bagpipe drone, oscillating around your speakers, a kind of psychedelic clarion call melody. Waves of guitar effects wash over you, then the song picks up momentum with a familiar heartbeat chug, chug, chug. It just keeps on building and building. A premonitory guitar melody plucked on an acoustic, then sliding, bending. You wonder where it’s going to go, but the song reveals that the destination isn’t important, as it slides off into a dull hum, before expiring. And then coming back to life, briefly, the whole choir of eldritch noise creeping back into view, then departing again. This is” The Forest is Our Temple”, the opening track on the latest record by Harvestman, ‘Music For Megaliths’, and as expected, it’s everything you’d want from a Harvestman record.

Harvestman is essentially a Steve Von Tillsolo project, but differs from the albums that carry his name in that there are next to no vocals on Harvestman, only an assorted array of instruments. It’s obvious that Von Till loves just noodling around in a studio and seeing what he can come up with by stacking tracks and playing with effects, venturing into the musical hinterland, and Harvestman is the focused, recorded outcome of this time.

If you’ve heard this side project before then it’ll offer no surprises, but it’s another excellent edition to the Neurosis legend’s back catalogue. Aside from the excellent opener, there are six other tracks on this album. “Oak Drone” is more of the same as the first, “Ring of Sentinels” features a nice little drum loop and soothing bass line, “Cromlech” has barely any structure and is simply just a dazzling droney joy feast, while closer “White Horse” is probably the only song that could come close to appearing on one of Von Till’s folk albums – haunting acoustic melody accompanied by foreboding vocals and the usual ambiguous, enchanting lyrics.

Another solid Harvestmanrelease – the short length arguably lets it down, as ‘Lashing the Rye’ was twice as long and more varied, but definitely worth a listen for anyone into drone, ambient or progressive music.

“Music For Megaliths” is available here

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