Ozric Tentacles - Technicians Of The Sacred FLAC

This may just be as damn near perfect as possible for mere humans. Every track is strong, with Zingbong, Switchback and Zenlike Creature as standouts.

Very, very strong release. The best Ozric Tentacles I'd heard in ages. It's nearly flawless, and in those rare occasions a track goes into a dip and you start to think "meh" for a minute, it then just blooms into something wonderful.
It's awesome to see Wynne reestablish OT as the best Space-Rock outfit this side of Gong.

This is by far the finest album the Ozrics had done in a long time, by far the best with Brandi on board. I kept listening to this and it simply blows me away. Ed, Brandi and Silas teamed up with Hungarian drummer Balazs Szende and (surprisingly) Paul Hankin. The cover is reminiscent of Blim, reminding me of Erpland. The music often has a more grand and epic scope to it than on Paper Monkeys, with a more laid-back approach, percussion and drums more in the background than usual, some people would think this is a bit more subdued, but the band hadn't forgotten to rock. This album will give you reminders of the Ozric past, but they also try on new things. For example, while many familiar sound sounds and timbres are found, they try new sounds. One of them this spacy gliding synth sound on "Zingbong". There's this strange violin experiment on "The Unusual Village" (it could very well be a synth approximating a violin as no one is credited to violin), and most of all nice female vocal chants on "Butterfly Garden" and "Changa Masala". This is packed full of great stuff like "The High Pass", "Far Memory", "Changa Masala", "Zingbong", "Switchback", "Epiphlioy" and "Zenlike Creature". The second disc is a bit less accessible, because it has a couple of slower piece cuts, like "The Unusual Village" and "Rubbing Shoulders with the Absolute", but they started revealing themselves after a few listens. "Zingbong" features a nice Asian vibe going one, those gliding synths as mentioned before, and some reggae. "Epiphlioy" has a Strangeitude vibe going on, thanks to a Turkish stringed instrument called a Saz (that Silas is credited to here). "Zenlike Creature" is a totally amazing closing piece, with some amazing guitar and synth passages. I couldn't have thought of a better way to close an album than that!

It's been a long time since I've been this enthused about a new Ozric release. I had to listen to this numerous times before developing a solid opinion. This one just kept sounding better and better with every listen! I know a few will feel that if it has Brandi on it, it can't be any good, but I don't see it that way. Not if Technicians of the Sacred for the last couple of weeks seldom left my CD player. This really comes highly recommended!